CAMBODIA: AUTHORITIES INTENSIFY CAMPAIGN AGAINST FOREIGNERS LURED BY THE COUNTRY'S REPUTATION AS HAVEN FOR PERVERTS AND PAEDOPHILES
Record ID:
347554
CAMBODIA: AUTHORITIES INTENSIFY CAMPAIGN AGAINST FOREIGNERS LURED BY THE COUNTRY'S REPUTATION AS HAVEN FOR PERVERTS AND PAEDOPHILES
- Title: CAMBODIA: AUTHORITIES INTENSIFY CAMPAIGN AGAINST FOREIGNERS LURED BY THE COUNTRY'S REPUTATION AS HAVEN FOR PERVERTS AND PAEDOPHILES
- Date: 16th August 2002
- Summary: (U2) SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE OF ANGKOR WAT; PEOPLE WALKING OUTSIDE ANGKOR WAT (2 SHOTS) 0.10 2. MV MALE FOREIGNER SITTING NEXT TO A GROUP OF CAMBODIAN GIRLS 0.18 3. SLV TOURISTS AT STEPS OF ANGKOR WAT COMPLEX; SLV CAMBODIAN CHILDREN AT ANGKOR WAT COMPLEX; SLV EXTERIOR OF ANGKOR WAT COMPLEX (3 SHOTS) 0.40 4. MV
- Embargoed: 31st August 2002 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PHNOM PENH AND SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA
- Country: Cambodia
- Reuters ID: LVA1GTONNFWBON88Y3GO8HMW5HEI
- Story Text: Authorities in Cambodia have intensified their campaign
against foreigners who visit the country lured by its
reputation as a haven for perverts and paedophiles.
Recently, two Australian men were charged with sexually
abusing three girls aged between 12 and 14 years.
The magnificent Angkor Wat complex in Siem Reap is home
to Cambodia's biggest tourist attraction.
Built between the 9th and 12 centuries, Angkor Wat
attracts thousands of tourists regularly who bring in
much-needed dollars to the local economy.
But a few miles outside Angkor Wat is another industry
fuelled by a different kind of tourism.
This village houses brothels where underage boys and
girls have sex with foreigners who pay them as little as 30
U.S. dollars.
Despite a crackdown by Cambodian authorities last year,
brothels openly thrive in Cambodia.
Recently, police in Siem Reap arrested two Australians
for sexually abusing three girls aged between 12 and 14.
Police alleged that the Australians had recruited the
girls, all from poor families, as maids and then sexually
abused them.
They said they found pornography video cassettes and
disks along with sex magazines in a house where the two men
had been staying since the middle of last year.
In an interview, one of the girls, a fourteen-year-old
Cambodian, spoke about the horrors she said she went through
with one of the Australians.
"I think that I'm a very bad girl who sold my body to a
foreigner. I've never done this before. One day, my mother
came and asked me to go back home. But I lied to her and told
her he is a good man, so she allowed me to stay on. But this
man would beat me often and sometimes, he would pour his urine
on my face," she said.
And , she says, the physical pain she endured with the
Australian was unbearable.
"Yes, it hurt me very much. I wanted to cry but I
couldn't do it because he would hug me hard and kiss me," she
said.
The two Australians are now being held at a
medium-security prison in Siem Reap, pending a full
investigation which is likely to take between four and six
months.
If convicted, they face a maximum of 15 years in jail.
A recent report published by ECPAT, an international
agency fighting child sex abuse, said hundreds of Australian
men are flocking to Cambodia to have sex with girls and boys
sold in brothels, mainly due to the belief that they won't get
caught.
While Australian law provides for jail sentences for
people who have sex with children overseas, Australia's
ambassador to Cambodia Louise Hand has said the embassy had
found it difficult to convince local authorities to stop the
abuse.
The Australian government tried and failed in 1996 to
prosecute a former Australian diplomat to Phnom Penh under its
child sex tourism law.
The Australian Federal Police recently posted an officer
to Cambodia to help deal with trans-national crime issues
including people trafficking and child abuse, but illicit drug
smuggling takes higher priority than the child sex trade.
Another study, made by UNICEF, said that although
poverty was the overriding factor, cultural acceptance of
prostitution had hampered efforts to eradicate child
prostitution.
Despite an increase in the number of sex offenders
arrested, actual convictions of foreigners for sex crimes
remain rare.
In a rare paedophile conviction in July, a municipal
court in capital Phnom Penh sentenced an Italian electrician
to 10 years in jail for sexually abusing four street boys.
International aid agencies based in Phnom Penh are on
the frontline in the fight against child prostitution.
"The problem of sex exploitation linked to tourism is
growing. Tourism in Cambodia has been increasing, it's part of
the economic strategy of the country, it's increased three
times, in the next few years. And part of that will include
tourists who are here for the wrong reason. So sex tourism is
a concern, it's increasing as recent cases show," said
Laurence Gray of World Vision International.
Gray says one way of addressing the issue is to empower
the children themselves who will play a major role in
protecting themselves.
"Children themselves are involved in addressing this
issue. Next week we will be working in Siem Reap with 60
children from villages around that area, in a way that builds
their awareness on problems that could be presented to them
through tourists preferring them for sex. Our research shows
that 70 percent of children in that area were aware of people
being asked for sex or have been approached themselves. We
want to build children's own capacity to protect themselves,"
said Gray.
Overseas visitors are returning to Cambodia in greater
numbers as the country emerges from two decades of civil war,
including four years of rule by the brutal Khmer Rouge which
left an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians dead.
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