The Problem of Child Sex Tourism and Sex Trafficking in Asia
Date: Monday, May 09 @ 14:50:30 EDT
Topic: Human Trafficking


This week on the Asian Journal, a look at the problem of child sex tourism and sex trafficking in the region.

Welcome to the programme, I'm Bharati Jagdish

MK: How do we define "child sex tourism"? It is when a person, from one country travels to another country to engage in sexual services with a child, with a minor.

According to UNICEF and ECPAT, there are more than 1 million child prostitutes involved in sex tourism in Asia.

In Thailand alone, there are close to 300,000 child sex workers alone.

While the figures are certainly alarming, they do not tell the real tragedy behind the lives of these women and children.

Melissa Kwee, President of the National Committee of the United Nations Development Fund for Women, or UNIFEM sheds light on the life of one such child prostitute.

MK: We worked with one outreach in Indonesia that interviewed a 12-year-old prostitute working in a brothel. Her parents let her go, her agent told her that she was going to get a job in a factory in Batam, and instead she ended up in a brothel. And when she got there, she was raped and given US$ 70 to her pimp, I guess, for her virginity, and subsequently, ended up contracting, various sexually-transmitted diseases. And that's what happens to a lot of girls who have this kind of sexual activities at very young ages. They have a lot of reproductive health disorders and problems as a result of that and she unfortunately I think, ended up becoming HIV-positive after that.

MK: Its a really sad story, and unfortunately, its been repeated many times, and in many places. Most of them are also, stuck in something they call debt bondage. For example, if they are bought by the brothel owner for say, a hundred US dollars, then that debt that was paid to the trafficker by the brothel owner, is then laid upon on the girl so then the girl has to service clients to pay off the debt to the brothel owner. And they are fined, when they refuse to service clients, they are fined when they are disagreeable, when they are tired, sick or whatever it is, and as a result, their debt to the brothel owner ends up increasing. And they are stuck in this cycle of debt.

Just what is the attraction that sex tourists have towards child prostitutes? Ms Kwee explains.

MK: People have talked about it as a question of innocence. That men somehow, when they visited the prostitutes, will pay additional sums, they will pay premium to have sex with a virgin, for example. There's that notion of innocence, there's that notion of vulnerability, its about feeling like you are more powerful, that you have a greater advantage or strength over that person. And that's a very warped, and in some ways, real part of the psyche of some of these men who visit prostitutes.

The continued existence of sex tourism in Southeast Asia is indeed worrying and ASEAN Secretary-General Mr Ong Keng Yong says the association has a zero-tolerance policy of the child sex trade.

OKY: We have a baseline, which is quite common to all of us. Number one, child sex tourism is illegal. Number two, trafficking in persons, whether its men, women or children is illegal. That is the common base. The only difference is how do we enforce such a law, and if it is broken, how do we meat out the punishment.

When it comes to punishing offenders, Mr Ong acknowledges that ASEAN will not interfere with the jurisdiction process in member nations. However, the general consensus amongst member nations is that strong legal action is a major part of the gameplan to fight child sex tourism.

OKY: The idea that if we all agree that this is a crime, in order to prevent it from happening again, we must have very good punishment, or coercive action to prevent repeat occurences. So that is where we are now trying to work on. We don't wan to tell each ASEAN country how much punishment or what they can do or cannot do, with regard to the offender. What that is, we can leave to the different countries to decide.

This is not to say that ASEAN does not work hand in hand to combat the problem. Mr Ong cites one example of a joint effort between Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand and the ASEAN Committee for Women.

OKY: The ASEAN Committe of Women wanted to tackle this issue of trafficking in women and children so they made some studies and said that we want to do a project which will lead to better legal regime in Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. Thailand, being more organised, they can offer more expertise to other countries. So more legislation, how do we do a law to deal with this kind of problem. How do we train our police officer, when they conduct raids, how do we care for the victims when we find them. So Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, they got together, under this idea originated from the ASEAN Committee of Women. And then now they are doing different things. One set to deal with legislation, one set to deal with victim support, one set to deal with how to reach out to the rural areas: how to educate parents and community elders, hoping that they can do their own community policing, caring for their own womena nd children.

Mr Ong also stressed the need for member nations to share information on repeated offenders who engage the services of child prostitutes.

OKY: You can blacklist a guy. He's from Europe, he's a child sex tourist, but he's only blacklisted in the country that we arrest him but if he go to the neighbouring country or some other ASEAN country, maybe the blacklist is not applicable. So only in recent years we started thinking about all this. So that's why I always say, information sharing is important. When you have blacklisting of sex offenders in one country, and you share this with another fellow ASEAN country, it will help.

As of now, an regional blacklist of sex offenders in has not materialise, but Mr Ong expressed a wish for such an initiative.

OKY: The police and intelligence bodies of ASEAN member countries, they do this kind of things quietly, and in a bilateral way but across the region, we have not yet instituted such kind of ASEAN blacklist for example, against such child sex tourists, maybe it is one area we should consider.

Other ASEAN measures that are currently underway is the formation of an ASEAN Traveller's Code, which is aimed at advising tourists to behave responsibly when travelling in the region.

On top of that, ASEAN member nations are also working hard to provide more employment opportunties to women and children so that they do not, as a last resort, enter the sex trade as a means of livelihood.

But ASEAN governments can only do so much, says Mr Ong. He says much responsibility lies in the hands of community and grassroot leaders.

OKY: If we throw our heart, into the cause of reducing poverty, do we have the resouces? We can't be throwing millions and millions of dollars and at the end of the day, you still have very poor people, who still have child sex tourism and prostitution. So we believe that we should try to do more education of the public, engage the communities. In some cases the villages: they are not happy to see their young girls and children being prostituted. So some of the NGOs are working very hard to galvanise the grassroots bodies to do more. Maybe more government support can be given to these groups. We can't be doing everything. There is no way we can control every little aspect of this problem. So can we get the community groups, the grassroot bodies to help, if they arrest the problem at source.

The problem of child sex tourism in the region was brought up during the ASEAN summit in Laos last year.

Mr Ong gave updates of how ASEAN leaders have followed up on their pledge to tackle the problem.

OKY: All these declarations have been signed, all these workplan has been adopted by the leaders. And in the last few months, we have started to look at how to actually implement them. So far we can only report that we have started some conversations and some meetings to organise our work. We have not yet seen the actual result. But it is important that all 10 countries are aligned. We are, I would say, determining the timeline, the next steps and all that.

As to what Singapore can do to strengthened this regional effort against child sex tourism, Mr Ong said

OKY: Singapore has a good brand name. It is well-known in this region and internationally. So if Singapore take a pro-active stand in combating trafficking against person, in combating child sex tourism, it will basically bring international attention to a higher level. Because, when Singapore talk, when Singapore does anything, people pay attention. And that is why many of the non-governmental bodies and international bodies want Singapore to do something, because to them, once Singapore does something, it has many good spin-off, it can bring a lot of good, positive impact.

And that was Mr Ong Keng Yong, Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

On that note, we end Asian Journal this week.

This programme was written and produced by Daphne Koh.

For Radio Singapore International, I'm Bharati Jagdish Origionally Published Radio Singapore International





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