Crackdown on Child-Sex Trade

Aug. 18, 2006 — -- As many as 2 million children worldwide are drawn into the sex trade each year, according to UNICEF and End Children Prostitution, Child Pornography, and the Trafficking of Children (ECPAT).

The child-sex trade is thriving in places like Thailand, where 41-year-old John Mark Karr was arrested in connection with the 1996 slaying of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey.

Carol Smolenski, ECPAT's U.S. executive director, estimates 25 percent of tourists who travel abroad seeking children in child-sex trades come from America.

These tourists, she says, fall into two different categories.

One category is what Smolenski called "preferential child abusers."

These pedophiles want to have sex with kids and will do it in the United States if they can get away with it, but find it easier to do in a foreign country.

Another category, Smolenski said, is "situational child abusers" -- primarily middle-age men who might not be that interested in children, but might try sex with kids in a foreign country.

"They want to try something new," Smolenski said.

These people rationalize their behavior, she said, by thinking, "Everyone does it here, so what the heck?"

Behavior Change Through Education

The second group, Smolenski believes, can be educated to change its behavior through a public awareness campaign launched in North America by ECPAT in 2004.

For the last three years, ECPAT has tried to get U.S.-owned hotels and airlines to follow the lead of other foreign-owned corporations to stand up to the child-sex trade.

Air France, for instance, runs in-flight videos against child-sex tourism.

According to Smolenski, 10 other airlines have used the videos, but no U.S.-owned airline has agreed to show them, "even though they've been asked many times."

Several hotel chains in other countries have agreed to sign what ECPAT calls "The Code" -- six criteria to establish their opposition to the child-sex trade.

Because the hotel concierge in many foreign countries -- including Thailand -- often supplies child prostitutes for tourists or recommends where they can find them, "The Code" urges employees not to "act as a facilitator or look the other way."

Instead they are urged to tell tourists, "It's against the law."

Not all tourists, Smolenski said, know about child-prostitution laws in foreign countries.

Smolenski hopes that this will make tourists pause before seeking child prostitutes.

"This is child abuse," she said. "They wouldn't do it back in America. Why do it here?"

'The Code' Catching On Slowly

So far, 275 companies around the world have signed "The Code."

Smolenski says "the problem is with U.S. companies."

Only one large U.S.-owned corporation, the Carlson Marketing Group -- which owns Raddisson hotels -- and a handful of small U.S. companies have come onboard.

"Most people are appalled by child-sex tourism and think it's a terrible thing, but are squeamish when it comes to talking about it," Smolenski said. "They don't want to be connected with it."

"A lot of American companies are afraid they will be sued if they sign the code of conduct and then something happens on their property," she said.

If everyone in the tourist industry -- hotels, airlines and tour operators -- conveyed the message that child-sex tourism was wrong, Smolenski said it could go a long way toward educating those "situational child-sex tourists."

Difficult to Track

Technology has made it easier to find child-sex tours.

The Department of Justice has said it will prosecute Internet sites that blatantly offer child-sex tours.

However, many of the sites use code words such as, "innocent," to assure tourists once they get to the destination country.

"Not to worry," Smolenski said. "They'll be hooked up with young children."

ECPAT acknowledges it is difficult to track the impact of the code on the child-sex trade.

Officials and police may not cooperate in enforcing the law.

They are often corrupt so they turn a blind eye to the problem or even exploit the children themselves.

Smolenski believes, however, that if the tourism industry -- which is large and plays such an influential role in the economy of these destination countries -- comes out strong against child-sex tourism, it will "change the environment and create a protection for the children of these countries."