Contents:

International child porn ring uncovered

IRISH VOLUNTEER RECALLS HORRORS OF THE PHILIPPINE SEX INDUSTRY

Filipino nurses living in `slave labour' conditions

International child porn ring uncovered
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer, Tue Mar 4, 6:42 PM ET

After James Freeman was vetted and approved for membership in what police describe as a highly sophisticated child porn network, he expressed his appreciation by posting two folders online: one labeled "mild," the other "wild."

"All I can say is that they are worth the download," wrote Freeman, 47, known in the global porn ring as "Mystikal," according to court documents. "My thanks to you and all the others that together make this the greatest group of pedos ever to gather in one place."

Freeman, of Santa Rosa Beach, Fla., was one of 12 Americans indicted last week in a worldwide investigation that ultimately charged 22 people with participating in the porn ring — and intentionally blocking police from investigating it.

In all, more than 400,000 pictures, video files and other images showing children engaged in sexual behavior were produced, advertised, traded and distributed globally in the online pornography ring, according to U.S. and international authorities. The sting, which started in Australia, also netted accused pornographers in England, Canada and Germany.

Some victims were as young as five years old. Others were preyed upon for innocent characteristics such as wearing their hair in pigtails.

Authorities won't say how they eventually broke through several layers of encryption, background checks and other security measures the pornographers used to protect their online user group from being accessed. The porn ring was run like a business, FBI executive assistant director J. Stephen Tidwell said Tuesday, with the lewd images used as currency instead of cash.

"This is beyond a quantum exponential leap for us to see folks that have gone to this much trouble to produce this kind of volume of horrific exploitation of children," Tidwell said in an interview.

So far, authorities have identified and rescued 20 of the children who were exploited, he said, adding: "But with 400,000 (images) we're going to be at this for years, trying to find the victims."

Australian investigators first discovered the ring and infiltrated it undercover in January 2006, said Ross Barnett, detective chief superintendent with the Queensland Police Service. Those who gained access to the online forum could only after passing a series of what Tidwell called "various benchmarks and bars to get over to get into their group."

"From our perspective, it's definitely the largest and most sophisticated and disciplined group that we have ever seen operating in this environment," Barnett said.

A 35-count indictment unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Pensacola, Fla., details conversations among the 12 men accused of trading and advertising the pornography. Two other Americans were also arrested in connection with the ring but not included in the indictment.

The men were charged in 11 states: California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington. They all used aliases, such as "Box of Rocks," "Crazy Horse," "Lizzard" and "Pickleman."

In one example cited in the indictment, 54-year-old Raymond Roy of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., posted videos of Thai children "to give everyone something to do for an afternoon."

"This one may offend here, so a word of caution, these girls are heavily drugged," Roy, known as "Nimo," wrote on July 10, 2007, according to the court documents. "Not much action to speak of, the girls are (sic) to (expletive deleted) up to move, or resist. Three girls, the first one being the youngest, around 8 or 9 yo."

"Yo" stands for "years old."

The 12 men were charged with engaging in a child exploitation enterprise; illegally posting notices seeking to receive, exchange and distribute child porn across state lines; and obstructing of justice. Several also were charged with producing the pornography — meaning they had contact with the children who were exploited, Tidwell said.

The investigation, which is continuing, is the latest product of the FBI's "Innocent Images" task force that stemmed from a 1993 child pornography case. The task force has arrested more than 9,400 suspects since 2004 and is made up of international investigators working in the United States from an FBI command center in suburban Maryland.

Noting the sophisticated process the porn ring used to bar police, Tidwell compared the growing number of child pornography crimes to that of cocaine dealers, terrorists and the Mafia.

"If they had good operational security, that's a bad thing for us," Tidwell said. "When you've got that, you've got a real challenge for law enforcement."

Back to top ^

IRISH VOLUNTEER RECALLS HORRORS OF THE PHILIPPINE SEX INDUSTRY
Olongapo Subic News
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Irish tourists buy into the sex trade overseas
by Volunteer development worker of Serve Ireland.

It is all too chillingly telling that bars in Olongapo in the northern Philippines are the haunts of anyone who seeks the sexual services of children. We didn't encounter huge numbers of Europeans that summer, but the majority of those we did were middle-aged men who spoke freely amongst one another about the best places to go and what you could get where.

Chilling truth as Irish tourists buy into the sex trade overseas

The O Searcaigh controversy raises questions about exploitation for us, says Diane Duggan

Fairytale of Kathmandu has yet to be aired on RTE. Perhaps when it is shown, the public can make up their own minds as to whether or not there is something suspect about poet Cathal O Searcaigh's encounters with younger men in Nepal. The journalistic jury is still out on whether he is a victim or a villain.

When the controversy surrounding the documentary first emerged some weeks ago, it raised the question as to how many Irish people felt disturbed and uncomfortable by it. Not because it appalled people for its connotations of abuse, but because many Irish people felt a little unnerved as to how it resembled activities they have engaged in themselves overseas.

Sex tourism is one of the world's booming trades, and children form a huge part of this industry in developing countries to which thousands of Irish people travel to every year. At a time when there is an outcry in relation to children's rights in Ireland, and a referendum in the offing, our apparent lack of regard towards how Irish people are exploiting children abroad is astonishing.

Of course, there is acute concern as to what may have happened in Nepal, and regardless of whether the boys in question were above the age of consent, the disparity of power in these relationships raises numerous issues. Nonetheless, there are children throughout Asia and Latin America who are quite clearly below the age of 17 and are being subjected to sexual abuse and deprived of any childhood -- and some of this is at the hands of Irish citizens.

To quantify its extent is an impossible task, but a brief look at groups working with these children puts the estimate into millions worldwide. But to go to the countries and see the problem for yourself exposes the horrible reality better than any figures could.

SERVE is an Irish development initiative that sends volunteers to work in developing countries. Working with SERVE in the Philippines in 2003, I experienced first-hand the immensity of the problem. Millions of children live on the streets, many of whom have only their bodies from which to make a living. I saw a mother sell her 12-year-old daughter on a nightly basis, one of thousands of girls and boys whose innocence and childhood are short-lived.

I sat and chatted with these children who opened my eyes to a world no child should ever have to imagine. Filipinos are generally friendly and affectionate people. The girls would rub my arm and tell me they wanted skin the same colour as mine, say how they loved Westlife and that everything about the white world was better and beautiful.

The girls without pimps said the boys living on the streets -- and forced to work the same way -- helped protect them. Yet there was something in all their eyes saying they had seen and done things that nothing on the streets could protect them from, and they had no other options.

Some children are as young as four when they are sold into prostitution, where their innocence can be bought for less than ¤1. It is Western tourists who fuel this industry, and prostitution is the fourth largest source of GNP in the Philippines, where up to 100,000 children are involved.

It is all too chillingly telling that bars in Olongapo in the northern Philippines are the haunts of anyone who seeks the sexual services of children. We didn't encounter huge numbers of Europeans that summer, but the majority of those we did were middle-aged men who spoke freely amongst one another about the best places to go and what you could get where.

Such tales of human depravity have been well-documented by the media. It is easy for sex tourists to legitimise what they do. When they travel to Pattaya, or Olongapo or Phnom Penh, they are surrounded by others there for the same reason -- if it's provided so readily and appears to be cultural practice, it's OK. Studies profiling situational sex offenders prove this. Out of Ireland, away from home, its easier to make the mental leap needed to legitimise these heinous acts.

There is nothing culturally acceptable about child abuse. There is never a time when it can be rationalised. When an impressionable 11-year-old Filipina approaches an Irish tourist, she does so as a girl whose innocence has been taken and is all too aware that the promise of food and shelter and any hope of a future, lie in this man's wallet, for which she does as he wishes. She aspires to the same level of dignity as any Irish girl, her only fault is that she was born in the wrong country. -- independent.ie

Back to top ^

Filipino nurses living in `slave labour' conditions
5:00AM Saturday March 08, 2008
By Simon Collins

Filipino nurses are being forced to work in what health officials describe as "slave labour" conditions in New Zealand rest homes to pay off often-exorbitant fees to recruitment agents and loan sharks.

A Weekend Herald investigation has found that some nurses are paying several times the true costs for work permits, bridging courses and registration in New Zealand, and are then bonded to work for up to three years at low wages in rest homes.

The Counties Manukau District Health Board signed a deal last week with a Philippines Government agency to bring nurses direct from the Philippines, cutting out private agents.

The Government's new Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme for horticultural workers from the Pacific also bans the use of any "recruitment agent who seeks a commission from workers".

But despite this, the seasonal work scheme has also run into problems. At least one Tongan group of 18 has gone home early after refusing to pick fruit for the offered rate of $45 a bin, and another Tongan, Saia 'Aholelei, has appealed to Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones after his work permit was revoked.

The number of low-paid workers being brought into New Zealand, mainly from poorer countries, has skyrocketed as unemployment has fallen. Work permits issued for 13 low-wage sectors have jumped more than 10-fold since 2002-03 from 1443 to 15,235.

But Mr 'Aholelei said he and other workers were shocked by the conditions they were expected to live in, with five men to a cabin at Aranga Backpackers in Kerikeri, and wages which left him with only $100 to $200 a week in the hand after deductions to repay his air fare, rent, medical insurance, tax and a savings scheme.

"They thought they were coming to New Zealand as a civilised country, but they end up with living conditions they are in," he said.

"Where I live in Tonga is way better. My kids don't sleep together with the pots and the dirty clothes."

Counties Manukau projects manager Sue Christie said she had seen some contracts for Filipino caregivers in a Northland rest home that were "tyrannical".

"There was no control over the roster or anything. It was almost like a slave labour type of connotation.

"These are people who are skilled nurses in their own country, who have often been working in acute areas of health provision, and what's been happening is that the only opportunity being offered to them in New Zealand when they get registered is in rest homes. If they are bonded for three years ... then they lose a lot of their acute skills quite quickly and at the end of that time the acute services are not wanting to pick them up. So it becomes a double whammy."

Nursing Council chairwoman Beverley Rayna, who manages a Christchurch rest home, said Filipino nurses were being brought in on student visas by private English language schools and trained solely for aged care, instead of doing bridging courses to become New Zealand-registered nurses.

A Filipino solicitor in Henderson, Paulo Garcia, said he had met six Filipinos _ two nurses, two dentists and two accountants _ who were enrolled in a $10,000 homoeopathy course in Kingsland by an agent who claimed that would help them gain residence.

Sue Christie said Counties Manukau had agreed with the Philippines Overseas Employment Administration to bring an initial 36 nurses from the Philippines to an eight-week bridging course at Manukau Institute of Technology, and then into jobs with the district health board.

MIGRANTE NZ
Organization of Filipino Migrant Workers in New Zealand

"We dream of a society where families were not broken up by urgent need for survival. We dream and will actively work for a homeland where there is opportunity for everyone to live a decent and humane life."

Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM)