australia3

Big Catch, But Little Room for Complacency
by Bob Burton CANBERRA—The recent arrest in different countries of 130 people
suspected of paedophile activity on the Internet was a major accomplishment, but activists
say there should be no let-up in the campaign against sexual exploiters of children. This
huge arrest was made on Nov. 30, thanks to a major international police investigation
involving police in 16 countries. One of those nabbed and charged with child pornography
was a 23-year-old Melbourne man. Police also confiscated a computer from a South
Australian man. The arrests were a result of investigations—initiated by police in Britain—
into discussions on Internet pornography chatrooms. The probes were coordinated with
police in Australia, New Zealand, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Italy, Israel,
France and Belgium. But activists working against child exploitation say efforts to combat
sexual exploitation of young people should also catch up with these technologies of the sex
trade, including the use of the Internet. More resources are required to investigate
information readily available on Australians involved in Internet child pornography, argues
Bernadette McMenamin, director of End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking
(ECPAT) Australia. "There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Australians involved in
Internet pornography rings and it needs dedicated long-term resources rather than just
thinking that dealing with one case initiated by British police is sufficient," she added. As it
is, McMenamin warns that Australia's early successes in combating the commercial sexual
exploitation of children—which resulted in the conviction of at least 10 offenders from 1995
to 2000—is at risk of being replaced by complacency. "Australia was one of the first to
really drive a lot of the global action but the point is you really have got to keep going," she
said in an interview. " I fear we are getting to a point in Australia where complacency is
setting in." Other areas of concern to activists—working on the problem from the countries
of offenders' origin—are waning media interest and diminishing official commitment at a
time of an increase in newer forms of exploitation, including child pornography through the
Internet. "Now we're seeing the explosion of Internet child pornography," McMenamin
explained. "Now the demand is not just for children through child sex tourism but the
commercially driven international child pornography networks. There's been a dramatic
growth in the last two years of children being sexually abused this way." In the early 1990s,
community campaigners in Australia created sufficient concern about local men who exploit
children to prompt the government to pass legislation in 1994, which made it an offence for
Australian citizens or residents to engage in sex with children outside the country. Soon
after, the Australian Federal Police created a task force to investigate allegations against
Australian citizens. The task force succeeded in bringing 10 Australians before the courts,
seven of who were convicted and sentenced to prison terms. A commitment to bring sex
offenders to justice ranked high in the national plan that the Australian government drew
up against the commercial sexual exploitation of children in August 2000, under
commitments made at the 1996 First World Congress against the Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children. But success in prosecuting offenders was not enough to prevent
the Australian task force being closed down. Attorney General Darryl Williams told
parliament just three months after the release of the national plan that there was "no need
for the unit to be continuing as a separate unit". McMenamin disagrees. "You need to have
a specialised police force to understand the issue and to have the commitment," she said.
"Some great headway has been made globally in addressing this issue. But at the same
time the problem itself is so dynamic. In order to look at prevention strategies, we have to
really fully grasp the changes in the problem." Rather than rely solely on the legal efforts of
the Australian government, ECPAT, with funding from the government's overseas aid
agency Ausaid, developed in 1998-1999 an educational programme called Child Wise
Tourism aimed at enlisting the tourism industry in curbing child sex tourism. Over the last
18 months, Child Wise Tourism has been piloted in five Asian countries, Thailand, Vietnam,
Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines. While tourism is not itself the sole cause of
sexual exploitation of children, it does "provide potential abusers with anonymity and an
environment conducive to seeking out susceptible children," an ECPAT briefing sheet said.
In Thailand and the Philippines, the tourism authority works with tourism trainers to
sensitise industry workers and students. Cambodia and Indonesia have included child-wise
tourism in their instructional materials for tourism workers, and an open university in
Vietnam uses training modules on child-friendly tourism. In Australia, too, a 1-800 call
support service was made available to tourism industry workers. Educational materials also
went to 3,000 travel agents. The managing director (Pacific) of Pacific Asia Tourism
Association (PATA), Sharon Hannaford, sees a gradual shift in the tourism industry. "There
has been a slow take-up as you can imagine it is an unpalatable subject. But at least by
putting in place avenues for advice, it provides people (within the industry) with somewhere
to go," she said. Child Wise Tourism program manager Chris Beddoe agreed: "I think the
penny is starting to drop with the tourism industry that it is in their interest to actually
support campaigns, rather than to stay away from them as they have done in the past."
Still, activists could do with a bit of help even in Asian countries. "We need more voices at
the local level - talking to individual hotels, individual operators," Beddoe said. New Zealand
barrister and coordinator of ECPAT New Zealand Denise Ritchie believes the greatest gap
in the strategy in combating child sexual abuse is the lack of change in men's attitudes.
"Overwhelmingly the end-users of children for sexual purposes are men. Some are
paedophiles, many are not," she explained. "Until demand for child sex is significantly
reduced, any well-intentioned vision to 'eliminate' it will never be realised." "We have
sought commitments from governments, from industry, from those working to protect
children - yet they maintain a general reluctance to challenge the environment which
tolerates particular male sexual practices and attitudes," she said. It is a view that provokes
strong reactions, including abuse, from some. But Ritchie remains optimistic: "Some men
appear to be willing to look at issues around power and control and the view of children
and women as commodities." Beddoe says it is important to keep the momentum going,
because "the problem is disappearing from some places, but re-emerging in others".