[US Congresswoman Loretta] Sanchez probes Asian human trafficking

In Cambodia, she said, “I met with women who had been trafficked.’’ Men from the United States, Sanchez said, “are going there supposedly for tourism and going on these sex things mostly with underage children.’’

April 12th, 2010
By Dena Bunis, Washington Bureau Chief
The Orange County Register (California, USA)

Whether countries like Taiwan, the Philippines and Cambodia are doing what they can to combat human trafficking was at the top of Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s agenda last week when she visited four Southeast Asian countries in six days.

“I went and had meetings with trafficked victims,’’ Sanchez, D-Santa Ana, said Monday. “I had an hourlong discussion with the Minister of Foreign Relations and the Minister of Labor’’ in Taiwan.

Sanchez had hoped to bring these issues to leaders of the government of Vietnam but she was unable to get into the country after officials there ignored her request for a visa, she said.

Sanchez said what she discovered in Taiwan was that it has the laws it needs to help get these women out from under a life of virtual enslavement but that the laws are not being implemented.

“They are trapped,’’ she said. When a woman calls the hot line the government has set up, government officials do respond. But, “they show up with the brokers and the deal-makers who own contracts on these workers.’’

Sanchez said while the United States has diplomats in all these countries who raise these issues with the government, “there’s nothing like a congressman meeting with the president of Taiwan saying this is important to us.’’

Sanchez said the United States has laws that tie good conduct by foreign governments in this area to their receipt of foreign aid. And each year, she said the State Department does an assessment of how well these nations are living up to their promises to thwart these practices.

Taiwan is looking for a better rating in this area than they’ve gotten before, she said. But she pointed out to Taiwan’s President, Ma Ying-jeou, that they need to better implement the laws they have on their books.

In Cambodia, she said, “I met with women who had been trafficked.’’ Men from the United States, Sanchez said, “are going there supposedly for tourism and going on these sex things mostly with underage children.’’

In Vietnam, Sanchez wanted to raise the issue of women being trafficked for sex and for domestic work.

Not receiving a visa from that country’s government is something she has experienced before. Sanchez, who has been an outspoken critic of the government of Vietnam’s record on human rights, was denied access in 2004, 2005 and 2006. In 2007, when she was given a visa, she found herself in the middle of an incident where Vietnamese officials refused to allow a group of dissidents to meet with her at the American ambassador’s residence.

“They don’t directly say no,’’ Sanchez said of the Vietnamese government. “What they do is just don’t approve you and then your trips comes and goes and it’s too late.’’

Sanchez said the human trafficking issue has U.S. components, particularly in Orange County, which she called a “destination point” for people from Vietnam and Mexico who are brought here to do domestic work .

“Because we’re such a diverse community here, people don’t notice these people here. We have a lot of it going on.’’

Sanchez said she believes beyond the human rights component of this issue there are national security implications.

“If they have the ability to smuggle people you can also smuggle terrorists, drugs, you have the forging of documents and money laundering,’’ she said.

Sanchez also went to Singapore on this trip to check out port security procedures as part of her work on the Homeland Security Committee.

Cambodia police bust paedophile ring

January 24, 2010
AFP

Police in Cambodia have arrested two locals and a US man after smashing a seven-year pedophile ring offering underage "virgin" girls to tourists for $US3,000 ($A3,327) a night, they say.

Taxi driver Mey Sovann, 36, and his female accomplice Sek Vy, 47, were arrested on Friday for providing underage girls for sexual services, said Bith Kimhong, head of Cambodia's anti-human trafficking unit, on Sunday.

A six-month investigation, aided by the French Police's International Technical Co-operation Delegation (SCTIP), found that since 2003, Mey Sovann had advertised underage virgin girls on the Internet for $US3,000 ($A3,327) a night.

He would pick up customers from Phnom Penh airport and show them pictures, before taking them to meet the girls at a guesthouse owned by Sek Vy, according to an officer from SCTIP's Cambodia office, who asked not to be named.

Mey Sovann was arrested by undercover police at the airport in possession of the underage girls' photographs, while Sek Vy was arrested at her guesthouse in Kandal province, about 20km south of Phnom Penh.

American Carl Craig Thomas, 58, was also arrested on Saturday in the capital for sexually abusing three underage girls provided by the Cambodian pair, and for child pornography pictures he took at the guesthouse, Bith Kimhong said.

"We have arrested the man and the woman who provided underage girls. During the investigation, we found they were providing three underage girls to the US man too," Bith Kimhong told AFP.

"Now we are investigating the case further to see if they have a wider network," he added.

Cambodia has struggled to shed its reputation as a haven for pedophiles, putting dozens of foreigners in jail for child sex crimes or deporting them to face trial in their home countries since 2003.

Shutting down child sex tourism

September 30, 2009
By John A. Hall
The Boston Globe (Massachusetts, USA)

PEDOPHILES and their victims dominate the media: Roman Polanski has been arrested and faces extradition to the United States for raping a 13-year-old girl more than 30 years ago; Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was abducted at age 11 from in front of her house in South Lake Tahoe, has been rescued after being held for 18 years by a registered sex offender.

What has received less attention, however, is that American pedophiles pose a grave risk to children outside the United States. They are routinely provided passports, which allow them to travel internationally to search for fresh victims away from scrutiny and US law enforcement. This practice needs to end.

The problem is significant. Worldvision, an international relief and development organization, estimates that as many as 2 million children are entangled in the commercial sex trade worldwide. Americans are estimated to encompass roughly 25 percent of all sex tourists. While Asian countries, including Thailand, Cambodia, India, and the Philippines, have long been prime destinations for Western child sex tourists, Costa Rica, Brazil, Mexico, and Central America are also emerging as destination countries.

The response of destination countries to child sex tourism has been largely ineffective. Although many have passed legislation that criminalizes sexual exploitation of children, these laws often remain unenforced against foreign tourists. Efforts to combat child sexual exploitation often run into conflict with the governments’ efforts to promote the tourism industry. Police corruption is widespread, and indeed local police are often implicated in the criminal activity.

American embassies have traditionally been reluctant to interfere with the activities of US citizens, legal or otherwise. In 1998, I visited the US Embassy in Phnom Penh in an attempt to report an American who was taking pre-adolescent girls to his room and paying them for sex. No embassy official would meet with me. An Interpol officer later laughed at my naivete: Why would I think that the US Embassy would want to cause a scandal just to protect some underage Cambodian girls, he asked?

In the last decade, however, there has been a dramatic shift in Washington’s response to child sex tourism. The PROTECT Act of 2003 greatly expanded the basis for criminal liability in several ways, and broadened the government’s prosecutorial power by allowing the prosecution of US citizens and residents who engage in sexual acts with children while abroad regardless of when they formed the intent to do so. The Act also abolished the statute of limitations for crimes involving children, and criminalized attempts to commit the crime.

Washington has also begun working closely with destination countries to counter the threat posed by American pedophiles. For example, the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement has 52 ICE Attaché Offices in 32 US embassies around the world to investigate US citizens and residents engaging in child sex tourism.

In one promising initiative - dubbed “Operation Twisted Traveller’’ - the US Embassy in Cambodia, with the ICE attaché agent, has begun working closely with Cambodian law enforcement agencies to collect evidence against identified American pedophiles adequate to support prosecution in US courts.

Last week Operation Twisted Traveller bore fruit: Three Americans were deported to the United States to face criminal charges for alleged sex crimes committed against children in Cambodia, and a fourth American was just arrested.

Such programs are obviously important, but are they adequate? Can ICE really be expected to effectively track and investigate the hundreds of convicted American pedophiles who travel overseas every year? If a country becomes too risky for American pedophiles, won’t they simply move on to other countries similarly beset by poverty, weak or corrupt law enforcement, and disinterested local officials?

Better, perhaps, would be for Washington to remove the ability of convicted pedophiles to travel overseas. We uphold restrictions on felons owning firearms, voting, and even residing in certain geographic locations. Yet we provide convicted child molesters and rapists with the passports they need to travel overseas as sex tourists.

Prohibiting convicted pedophiles - individuals convicted in American courts of specific sex crimes involving children - from obtaining a passport or traveling outside the United States would be a significant step toward protecting foreign children from American sexual predators.

John A. Hall is an associate professor at Chapman University School of Law, in Orange, Calif., and a research fellow at the Center for Global Trade & Development.