47 Children Lost To Child Trafficking At The Tripura Refugee Camp

In a shocking case of child trafficking, 47 children have gone missing from a refugee camp in north Tripura. Trafficking of children is despicable but when people associated with an organisation which is set up to help them have a better future do it, it is a defintite crime. 47 children have gone missing from the Tripura refugee camp.

The parents were promised that their children will be going to school and will be taken care of by Biradamani Beang, who has been visiting these settlements since 2002. The parents had no idea they were signing a document declaring their chldren as orphans. Since the children left, there has been no news of them and now even Beang is untraceable. After a missing person complaint was filed, seven children were located, each with a horror story of his/her own. One of the missing children was found in an Anand Marg ashram in Shillong. He said he had worked as domestic help. The educational secretary from Anand Marg denies the allegation of children having gone missing from the ashram.

But, it is sad that the ashram can’t even account for them and wouldn’t have bothered to track them if somebody didn’t raise questions. These children are actually being taken to placement agencies in other states and sometimes across the border to Bangladesh to be suppiled as domestic help and sometimes, worse for prostitution.

We talk of child labour laws and debating the idea of what age is ok for children to start working and education being the one tool for their upliftment. But when organisation meant to give the children a break have employees flouting this main purpose, it is disappointing.

Philippine Cybercrime Bill To Check Child Pornography

A proposed cybercrime bill should include provisions penalizing child pornography, it was suggested at a recent workshop.

The provisions would be consistent with international guidelines discussed during the Budapest Convention on the Council of Europe in 2001, government and private sector representatives at the workshop were told.

The Budapest Convention offers guidelines for the development of national legislation and a framework for international cooperation against cybercrime.

The two-day workshop was organized by the Department of Justice, the Commission on Information and Communications Technology, and the Council of Europe, in partnership with Microsoft in order to dissect the proposed Philippine cybercrime bill before it is endorsed to Congress.

The workshop divided attendees into groups to work on three general provisions of the bill, namely emergency response, enforcement and implementation; jurisdiction and international cooperation; and punishable acts, said Albert dela Cruz, director of the Philippine Computer Emergency Response Team (PH-CERT) and currently platform strategy manager at Microsoft Philippines, in an interview.

Each group presented their suggestions to lawmakers and members of the CICT, headed by its chairman, Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua III.

For about eight years, various sectors have lobbied for a cybercrime law in the Philippines.

Online Child Prostitution On The Increase In Japan

Online crime hit a new high in Japan in the first six months this year, with the number of cases of child prostitution arranged on the Internet surging more than 60 percent, police said last week.

Arrests were made in 1,808 cases of Internet crime, up by six cases from the same period last year and the highest since 2003 when police started compiling similar half-year data.

For child prostitution (in some cases referred to enjo kosai or compensated dating), in which minors meet with adult clients on dating and other websites, the number of cases jumped 62.7 percent to 275.
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"We will promote activity to ban children from using dating websites while pushing ahead with spreading filtering on cellphones," the National Police Agency said in a report.

Young Japanese often surf websites specially designed to be viewed on cellphones.

Online auction fraud remained the leading cyber crime, with 490 cases but the figure was down 33.2 percent from last year.

Thailand Make Moves To Fight Child Exploitation

Permanent secretary for justice Jarun Pukditanakul has instructed the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) to expand its role to begin combating child exploitation, especially through pornography and transnational organised crime.

He said child exploitation was on the increase and that criminals behind child pornography had become more sophisticated. He said crimes were carried out using hi-tech media and global communications through transnational criminal networks.

"The DSI must have a role in fighting these crimes by cooperating and setting the scope of work with the National Police Bureau," said Mr Jarun during a seminar with DSI officials recently.

He said the DSI was better equipped to handle challenging issues such as transnational pornography distribution and that other police agencies might be over-stretched with existing tasks.

However, Mr Jarun also admitted that existing Thai legislation remains too weak to cope with child exploitation.

The Porn Media law for example does not separate child pornography from general pornographic crimes. Even the criminal law fails to punish a person found in possession of child pornography, unless they distribute or benefit from it.

"In some foreign countries, child pornography is considered as dangerous as drugs and possessing it is absolutely illegal because this kind of media can stimulate people's sexual desires for children," said Mr Jarun.
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There was some good news however, as the cabinet has already approved a new bill for the suppression of tempting media, in which child pornography is categorised as dangerous.

"The bill was debated vigorously in the cabinet. Those opposing it were worried about some possible impacts on the public, but the majority were supportive. The prime minister has approved it in principle," he said.

The bill has been sent to the Council of State for further consideration but Mr Jarun said he could not tell when it would be passed on to the National Legislative Assembly for endorsement.

However, once the bill is endorsed, along with the human trafficking bill, both laws will be important tools enabling the DSI to better tackle transnational organised crime networks.

"Besides harsher penalties, what's more important is that both laws will improve efficiency in tracing and arresting criminals," he said.
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Mr Jarun said the current criminal justice system was outdated and that many state officials still view prostitutes as if they were criminals.

"We must erase that kind of prejudice. Prostitutes are not criminals, but they are rather the victims of injustice. Those who reap the benefits from them are the criminals," he said.

He said he wanted the DSI to try a new approach by winning the trust of trafficked women, convincing them to become witnesses and then tracing back the origins of organised crime.

Irish Paedophiles Attacking The Philippines For Child Prostitution

Campaigning Irish priest Fr Shay Cullen warns that the Philippines is becoming the number one destination for Irish paedophiles who prey on the country's estimated 60,000 children caught up in the sex industry.

And he warns that what happens on the faraway streets of a Philippine shanty town will eventually impact on small-town Ireland.

"The abusers do not leave their habits and desires at the airport. These paedophiles come to whet their appetite, have their fill and return with their desires to molest children greater than ever," he says.

The sordid 'industry' in the Philippines involves everything from child slavery to children as young as 10 being sold as sex slaves.

Fr Cullen, who was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize, has been fighting the Philippine authorities for 40 years to stamp out the business. Now, after much success, he finds himself confronting Irish sex tourists on a regular basis.

"There are sex tourists from Ireland, we don't know how many - but they are here - we bump into them from time to time. You have lots of paedophiles who hide out here: Irish guys, German, Swedish."

According to the priest, the South-east Asian tsunami wiped out hundreds of sex resorts. The sex tourists are now flocking to the Philippines, which was spared.

Angeles City, which is two hours' drive from Manila, is the home of the Philippines sex industry. Thousands of sex tourists from all over the world, including Ireland, visit the place every week in search of cheap sex.

According to Fr Cullen, many of the tourists go in search of children younger than 12, of which there is a plentiful supply.

"Fourteen-year-old girls living with 70-year-old foreign men as sex comfort girls is so common that the government officials wonder what all the fuss is about," Father Cullen says.

Child Prostitution A Million Dollar Business In Ukraine

Juan Miguel Petit, the Commission's Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography reported that the flourishing of child prostitution and trafficking of children are the great problems in Ukraine.

According to UNO press-service, 10% of victims of human trafficking are children at the age of 13- 18. The half of these children is sent in neighboring countries, especially in Russia.

¡§The children in ¡§across-the-border¡¨ sale are exploited in street trade, in house service, in farming, as dancers, waiters or waitresses, or even in sexual service. More particularly they become dancers, beggars or they give sexual service,¡¨ the report gives.

The report says that in many cases children become objects of trafficking inside the country. Dealers on children trafficking decoy their victims in debt bondage. They make children to work off the costs of traveling, meals and dwelling. The possibility to tear away from this debt bondage is happened very seldom.

The Commission's Special Rapporteur said that nobody helps these victims either abroad, or after their returning.

Juan Miguel Petit said that Ukrainian child prostitution has increased for recent years. According to the research of Ukrainian Institute of Social Investigation, there are 11% of children at the age of 12-15 and 20% of children at the age of 16-17 among women who are engaged in sexual service. Petit pointed out that there are even 10 years old girls who are involved in prostitution.

The UNO chairman worries about the way the procurers, trafficking dealers and producers of pornography use children. He learned from mass media and different booklets for tourists that there are many announcements about weddings and meetings which are not controlled. He emphasized that with visa free entrance for majority of west countries Ukraine is turning into an open country for sex-tourism. The Commission's Special Rapporteur apprehends that there are many juveniles, exploited in this spreading activity.

Petit said that Ukraine needs to form a new model of children protection; otherwise this problem will pass into the next generation. He formulated a line of recommendations on this point.

During the October visit in our country Petit said that Ukraine need to create a new model of children rights protection. The UNO chairman calls law enforcement agencies of Ukraine to control marriage agencies and closed night clubs, where child prostitution and trafficking of children flourish. He also doubts about frontier rules, which regulate the departure of nonaged minors abroad.