Each year, around a third of Thailand’s young men are made to serve in the armed forces, under the country’s compulsory military service laws. Amnesty International has found that the Thai military routinely subjects these new conscripts to a barrage of physical violence, humiliation and sexual abuse that often amounts to torture. “We were just toys to them” documents a widespread and long-standing pattern of abuse. Conscripts described being made to perform physical exercises far beyond their endurance as a form of punishment, including being forced to stand in positions which often led to fainting or injury.