SEA countries urged to combat sex tourism

Indah Setiawati ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Denpasar   |  Sat, 03/21/2009 2:23 PM  |  Bali

The Southeast Asian Conference on Child Sex Tourism concluded Friday with an identification of the key problems causing sexual exploitation of children and a call for all parties to execute a 15-point recommendation.

The recommendation includes making and displaying educational material to raise awareness and empower children to protect themselves, providing opportunities to involve children's participation in the effort against sex offenders, sensitizing clients and customers to protect children, and enhancing technical support for law enforcers.

Yohanes Hartadi, a student from Jakarta's Atmajaya University, reading out the recommendation items, said conference participants had approved the points Thursday evening.

"We call on ASEAN members states to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, if they have not already done so," he said, reading out the plan of action.

The conference concluded that poverty remained the root of the problem, while lack of education, gender relations and weak law enforcement capacity contributed to the magnitude of the commercial sexual exploitation on children.

Identified problems to counter the crime include limited engagement and support from private sectors and poor collaboration across different government agencies and between civil organizations.

The seminar also proposed the use of the alternative term "traveling sex offenders", saying the term "child sex tourism" did not accurately reflect the fact that as long-term visitors, foreign residents and domestic travelers could possibly commit the crime.

The current economic crisis will increase children's vulnerability to fall victim to sex offenders who make frequent trips to remote areas in the hotspots of Southeast Asia, the statement said.

"Sex tourism indeed exists. People come from other countries especially for sex," Bakri, head of the Indonesian Tourism and Culture Ministry's Social Empowerment Agency, said during a discussion after the conference.

He added the hotspot destinations in Indonesia included Batam, Tanjung Pinang, North Sumatra, Jakarta, South Sulawesi, Bali and Lombok.

Local participants at the conference said they had expected to get a map of the child sex tourism areas in the country that could be used as a reference to arrange countermeasures, but none of the speakers presented the data.

In response, Arum Ratnawati, a participant from the International Labor Organization (ILO), said she looked forward to assisting the National Coalition for the Elimination of Commercial Sexual Exploitation, an affiliation of End Child Pornography and Trafficking (ECPT) International, to set up qualitative research on vulnerable areas.

"I think getting the estimates of victims is too difficult because sexual exploitation of children is mostly a hidden activity. But a qualitative method could give enough descriptions," she told The Jakarta Post.

Her initiative was welcomed by Irwanto, the coalition's president director. He previously said at the seminar that surveillance efforts were urgently needed to shine a light on the sordid sexual commercial exploitation of children.

Bali Police detective Sang Ayu Putu Alit said she was aware about the lack of capacity building within the police force, with some officers not sensitive to the handling of child sex tourism.

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