Philippine News Digest 78
May 02 - June 08, 2004
Contents:
US is
pursuing Americans who commit sex crimes abroad
Vatican
official calls for tougher stance against human trafficking
Balinese
children vulnerable to abuse
US
is pursuing Americans who commit sex crimes abroad
After
the United States passed a federal law in 2003 known as the Protect Act
that eliminated an obstacle for prosecutors seeking charges against
Americans accused of molesting children abroad, several dozen suspected
American sex tourists are now under investigation and at least four are
awaiting trial. One suspect was a convicted pedophile from Baltimore
accused of molesting boys in two Asian countries. Another was a doctor
from Georgia who the Russian police said drugged his young victims in a
St. Petersburg hotel. A third was a retired Army sergeant from Seattle who
may have molested up to 50 children. Child-advocacy groups estimate that
as many as 25 percent of all sex tourists abroad come from the United
States. Although the data is inexact, Americans who have sex with children
abroad are thought to number in the thousands,
with hard-core pedophiles, casual tourists and business people taking
advantage of lax enforcement, child advocacy groups and American officials
say. Source: Eric Lichtblau and James Dao, 8 June 2004.
Vatican
officials calls for tougher stance against human trafficking
Archbishop
Silvano Tomasi, Vatican's top representative to United Nations in Geneva,
said during the 60th session of the Human Rights Committee
April 8 that trafficking in humans is the worst among the violations of
the rights of people on the move. He said that a recent international
protocol on the prevention and suppression of trafficking of humans is not
enough and called on governments to join forces through the “collection
and sharing of data, including the strategies and routes used by
traffickers.” He also called for a clear, legal protection and
temporaray legal residence for victims of trafficking in their host
countries and for less restriction in opening regular channels of
immigration for those who freely choose to leave their home countries. Up
to one million people are shuttled cross national borders every year and
forced into slave-like conditions in work, sexual abuse and begging,
fuelling a multi-billion criminal industry, the archbishop said. Source: The Sunday Examiner, 2 May 2004
Balinese
children vulnerable to abuse
A research conducted by Natalie O'Brien, investigations editor of “The Australian” for Child Wise Australia, revealed that children and the Balinese community at large were far more vulnerable to exploitation compared others in a different location. The research was conducted in light of allegations of the existence of established pedophile networks in Bali involving long-term foreign residents and the trafficking of children within and outside the country particularly after the Bali bombing. It is generally believed that child sex offenders are attracted to and target communities which are vulnerable because of poverty, war and other destabilizing factors. Source: Child Wise Newsletter No. 72 May 2004.
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