U.s. Targets Thailand For Child Sex Tourism

[george]

U.S. targets Thailand, Costa Rica for child sex tourism

WASHINGTON: --U.S. government agencies and a nongovernmental organization have expanded their fight against child sex tourism beyond the United States and Cambodia to include Thailand and Costa Rica, U.S. and NGO officials said Tuesday.

Next year, World Vision, one of the largest NGOs working on issues affecting children, expects Brazil and Mexico to join its Child Sex Tourism Project initiative, the project's director, Joseph Mettimano, said at a news conference.

The U.S State Department's Office of Trafficking in Persons and the Homeland Security Department's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) joined World Vision earlier this year to back the initiative.

"The project has two primary goals," Mettimano said. "The first is to deter U.S. citizens from participating in child sex tourism."

The second is to "assist ICE and local law enforcement by helping to identify Americans who are committing this crime overseas and in some cases actually providing information to aid the investigations and prosecutions," he said.

The project began earlier this year, focusing on the United States and Cambodia.

In an effort to deter U.S. child sex predators and make them aware of the harsh consequences, the project has launched a media campaign with large billboards in major destination cities such as Phnom Penh that read, "Abuse a child in this country, go to jail in yours."

The project also involves pop-up ads on sex tourism websites, in tourist brochures and on CNN International playing in departure airports.

World Vision has been negotiating with commercial airlines for TV ads to be aired during flights to Asia or Latin America.

Since the mid-1990s, it has been a federal crime for a U.S. citizen to sexually exploit a minor in a foreign country.

The passage of the Protect Act in 2003 enhanced the power of government agencies to pursue offenders aggressively. In some cases, prison terms run as long as 30 years.

An estimated two million children are abused worldwide by the commercial sex trade every year, Mettimano said. An estimated 25% of sex tourists are Americans.

Child sex tourists include those who engage in sexual exploitation during legitimate travel including business trips and those who regularly travel abroad for the purpose of child sexual exploitation, or pedophiles.

Developing countries are particularly vulnerable to child sex tourism because of the availability of children, weak local law enforcement and the ability for the perpetrator to remain anonymous.

--Agencies 2004-10-13

[rod_kalashnikov]

 

[astral]

It seems to me this is all 20 years too late.

The visible child sex trade here today is fraction of what it was back in the 80's. The laws here have already been strengthed, and we have the

morality police closing bars at midnight.

Is this another example of the US trying to deflect attention from their own deficiencies??

If they want to protect our children, then don't let these people travel here!

[stroll]

How would you know who travels for which reasons? One could only restrict travel for those guilty of related offences previously. This could and should be done.

[mango]

Well i think it can only be a good thing however the comment about being rather late is a valid one. Reminds me of WW2

[siam]

I was looking up something the other day on the net,As to the legal age of consent around the world especially Thailand,I was horrified to find the legal age of consent in Costa Rica is 12,Yes twelve years old,

Isn't that where GG ended up,Now he is still in Cambodia,

IMHO They should castrate and give the peads Bromine jabs to the scrotum,all without aneasethic.

[eljeque]

In the US, there is a law entitled, "Megan's Law," which is named after a little girl who was abducted and killed. I am not sure exactly what teh law states, but it is against child sex offenders.

After learning that the records of 20,000 sex offenders in California had been lost or discarded, I wrote to the State of California - where the law was first enacted, and asked about the possibility of using the records that exist on child sex offenders, categorizing them by Social Security Number and then allowing the federal government to match passport numbers and send out lists to all of the poor countries which attract child sex tourists.

They sent me back a nice letter that simply said that they were not able to do it.

Who knows why?

Recently, I have written to a half dozen state police departments with the same idea. I have been told that only the information on the website is what will be available to the general public. I wrote again and stated that I did not personally want the information, but that Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, Costa Rica, etc., would like to know before hand when a child molestor arrives in their country.

I was basically told that the website infomratio was all that I was allowed access. I made it clear that I was not looking to get the information, but wanted the police departments to get together. No one was interested.

I got the same response from the FBI.

[thaiwing]

read and understand the world young ones.....it can be a twisted evil place......

http://www.childrenslawcentre.org/Thelawgreen.htm