Part one of a six-part series on sex tourism
PHNOM
PENH, Cambodia — More U.S. bombs dropped on Cambodia during the Vietnam War
than fell on Europe during the Second World War. Genocide and civil war
followed.
The
terrible legacy is that Cambodia is one of poorest, most corrupt countries in
the world with the second highest number of landmines.
There
is no social safety net here. No welfare. No health care. No free schooling. No
mandatory minimum wages.
Half of
all Cambodians survive on less than $1 a day. The average factory worker earns
$61 a month. Police are not only poorly paid, their meagre wages also have to
cover the cost of uniforms, guns and ammunition.
Judges
are frequently bribed.
But
it’s also a country brimming with children. More than half of Cambodia’s 14.7
million citizens are under the age of 18.
If
you’re looking to exploit children, this is a good place to come because there
are so many desperately poor parents willing to do desperate things.
With
all of its problems, Cambodia is a destination of choice for so-called sex
tourists and it’s here that Canada’s most notorious travelling sex offenders
have come.
British
Columbians Donald Bakker and Kenneth Klassen — two of only five Canadians
convicted under the Criminal Code’s “sex tourism” provisions — came here. So
did Chris Neil of Maple Ridge, who was on Interpol’s most wanted list before
being convicted in Bangkok for sexually abusing two under-aged boys.
It’s
impossible to know how many Canadian men have visited Cambodia and sexually
abused children, just as it is impossible to know how many other travelling sex
offenders from other countries have visited and escaped prosecution. The only
statistic that even hints at the amount of Canadian sexual predators abroad
comes from the federal government, which says that since 1997,136 Canadian men
have sought consular help overseas after having been arrested or imprisoned for
child sex offences.
What is
known is that the number of tourists to Cambodia — both good and bad — grows
every year. Inbound tourists increased 12 per cent in 2010 to 2.5 million. That
number increased a further 26 per cent in the first half of 2011.
What
sets Cambodia apart among so-called sex-tourist destinations is the age of the
children exploited here, according to non-governmental organizations who work
to rescue victims and counsel the survivors. Children as young as three have
been, and continue to be, rescued from brothels; the youngest are almost always
procured for foreigners.
Because
raping children is so sadly normalized here, some experts say it creates
situational or opportunistic pedophiles — men who might not dream of having sex
with a child at home, but are willing to give it a try here.
The
Cambodian government’s 2006 estimate of 30,000 children being commercially
sexually exploited has never been updated. The government has never provided an
estimate of how many additional children have been trafficked outside the
country and are working in forced or indentured labour.
But
last June, the United Nations committee on the rights of the child special
report on Cambodia expressed “deep concern” that thousands of children are
exploited in prostitution — that’s child rape. It also noted, “an alarming
proportion of children are exposed to sexual violence and pornography.”
Among
the committee’s other concerns are that: perpetrators of child sexual abuse and
exploitation are rarely prosecuted because of the widespread practice of
out-of-court settlements and compensation paid to victims’ families; limited
action is taken against sex offenders and operators of brothels and other sex
establishments where under-aged girls are sexually exploited; and, that
rehabilitation services and shelters for victims of sexual exploitation are
almost all in the capital and almost all are run by non-governmental
organizations.
In the
first nine months of 2011, 118 cases involving trafficking and children were
heard in Phnom Penh municipal court. More were heard in other tourist-friendly
places such as Siem Reap, near the famous Angkor Wat, and the beach resort
villages in and around Sihanoukville.
Part of
what’s pushing travelling sex offenders into Cambodia is neighbouring
Thailand’s increased enforcement of child sexual abuse laws, according to
western diplomatic sources and non-governmental groups such as World Vision and
ECPAT International (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking
of Children for Sexual Purposes).
And
with six million Cambodians under the age of 18 — and 1.6 million under the age
of five — there’s a boundless supply of victims.
Online and underground
Things
have changed since Donald Bakker arrived here in 2003 from Vancouver and went
to find his victims in the notorious pedophile paradise called Svay Pak about
11 kilometres from downtown Phnom Penh.
Little
girls and boys are no longer openly marketed on Svay Pak’s main street.
The
trade has largely gone underground and online.
It’s
likely because of the Internet that Burnaby art dealer Kenneth Klassen could
step off a plane even a decade ago and within 48 hours have procured, assaulted
and videotaped eight girls, the youngest of whom was eight.
The
59-year-old pleaded guilty in 2010 only after his attempt to have Canada’s sex
tourism law — Criminal Code Sections 7 (4.1) to 7 (4.3) — declared
unconstitutional. Those laws — passed in 1997 — says that anyone who commits
sexual offences against children outside Canada is deemed to have committed
that offence in Canada.
In
sentencing Klassen to 11 years in jail — less than a year each for abusing six
Colombian girls and eight Cambodian girls — B.C. Supreme Court Justice Austin
Cullen described what Klassen had done as “a gross violation of the natural
imperative to protect children.”
It was
the longest sentence given for that offence.
Canada’s
first sex tourist — Bakker — received seven years in prison; two years for a
horrifically violent assault on a Vancouver woman and five for abusing seven
Cambodian girls, the youngest of whom was only seven.
Bakker
gets out of jail in June.
Compare
that with the sentence given ex-Marine Michael Pepe, who abused seven Cambodian
girls and was sentenced about the same time as Klassen in a California court.
Pepe, who was 55 at the time, received 110 years. It’s a ridiculous sentence
even for a young man, but it makes the point that Americans view sex tourism as
an intolerable crime.
And
while Canada’s sex tourism law is well-crafted and has been deemed by the
courts to be constitutional, Klassen was the last person charged.
Another
British Columbian, Orville Mader, was arrested at Vancouver airport in 2007
after a worldwide manhunt. Mader had fled home from Thailand carrying only his
laptop to avoid arrest on charges of sexually abusing a seven-year-old boy.
A judge
set Mader free on bail, but placed restrictions on him, while police
investigated and Crown prosecutors determined whether to lay sex tourism
charges. Mader was restricted from using the Internet, being in contact with
children or going anywhere they might congregate. His passport was taken away
and he was to report regularly to Surrey police.
While
he lived under those restrictions, Mader was convicted in absentia in Thailand.
But in November 2010, police and B.C. prosecutors allowed Mader’s conditions to
lapse. The Crown had decided that the evidence didn’t meet Canadian standards.
Mader was free. Whether he got his passport back, Canadian officials won’t say,
citing privacy laws.
Then
there’s the case of Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh. Last year, the 67-year-old from
Cape Breton had his conviction on 17 charges of gross indecency and indecent
assault of six Canadian boys overturned because it had taken so long to get to
court. Their allegations dated back to the 1970s and by the time the victims
came forward in 1995, MacIntosh was in India.
Twice,
the Canadian passport office failed to revoke his passport. Finally, in 2006,
Canada requested MacIntosh’s extradition from India. That was the same year the
Toronto Star reported that two Indian men had alleged MacIntosh assaulted them
while they were boys living in an orphanage.
“I
think there’s a need for a more aggressive stand with respect to the
acquisition and analysis of intelligence and a better co-ordinated approach to
[sex tourism],” Insp. Sergio Pasin of the Canadian Police Centre for Missing
and Exploited Children said in a phone interview.
Pasin
is in the process of formulating a national strategy that is likely to focus
mainly on men who access child pornography online.
“In my
view, these are the individuals you really need to look at because they’re
grooming and luring and then they transition from the online offender or have
the potential for transitioning from the online offender to the hands-on
offender. So then the next phase you have to look at is whether they have the
potential to travel and have they travelled in the past? Where have they gone?
And so on.”
International action
Pushed
by faith-based and non-governmental organizations as well as celebrities such
as Angelina Jolie and the formidable Somaly Mam, who was a child sex slave in
Cambodia, other Western governments such as the United States, Australia and
Britain have made greater efforts to prosecute sex tourists and protect
children abroad.
The
United States passed its sex tourism law in 1994, which was amended and renamed
the Protect Act in 2002 when it also began Operation Predator that links not
only American police agencies to U.S. border security, it allows them to
partner with foreign governments in both overt and covert child pornography and
sex tourism investigations.
Among
the recent investigations, one involved setting up a website for sex tourists
that had Canada as its destination. The two-year project, which ended in March
2011, resulted in the conviction of two Germans and two Americans.
Operation
Twisted Traveller, which was conducted in Cambodia over two years in
collaboration with a French-based, non-profit organization — Action Pour Les
Enfants — resulted in the arrests of three Americans who had previous
convictions in the United States for sexually abusing children. The three were
arrested in 2009. One pleaded guilty; the other two are in jail awaiting trial
in Los Angeles.
Earlier
this month, Britain closed what was described by the international child
protection group ECPAT as “the three-day loophole,” which allowed registered
sex offenders to leave the country for up to three days without notifying
police. Now, they must notify authorities of all foreign travel plans.
Earlier
this year, the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) began
Project Childhood, a $7.5-million, three-year program involving the UN Office
of Drugs and Crime, Interpol and World Vision. Working with police and courts
to increase enforcement and with community leaders to educate children and their
families, the project aims to reduce sexual exploitation of children in tourism
in the Mekong Delta region including Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Laos.
Pushed
by western countries and NGOs — and because of a growing fear that ‘good’
tourists are now avoiding it — Thailand has increased enforcement of its child
exploitation laws. But that increased enforcement has resulted in sexual
predators seeking out countries such as Cambodia where the commitment to
prosecuting and jailing child sex offenders is far from certain.
Last
year, three foreign pedophiles were granted royal pardons at the government’s
request. Among those pardoned was Alexander Trofimov.
Also
known as Stanislav Molodyakov, Trofimov is wanted by Interpol for having
allegedly raped six girls under the age of 10 before he fled Russia for
Sihanoukville, Cambodia’s coastal resort town.
There,
the 44-year-old executive director of Koh Puos Investment Group negotiated a
deal to build a $300-million resort. But while he was doing that, Trofimov also
sexually abused 15 under-aged girls, including a mute 13-year-old.
Trofimov’s
sentence was initially 15 years, but that was reduced to eight years in 2010.
Then, in May 2011, Trofimov was pardoned after having served half of the
reduced sentence.
Freed
in Cambodia, he remains on Interpol’s most-wanted list. The Cambodian
government has not responded to a request from 14 international children’s’
rights organizations to deport him to Russia.
Lifelong sentence for victims
Pedophiles
most often escape arrest. Others may do their time, get pardons and disappear
to other countries where they’ll likely re-offend.
But the
victims are never free.
“They’ll
always have scars,” says Sue Taylor, who has counselled dozens of survivors
since coming to Cambodia in 2005. Among the survivors are Donald Bakker’s
victims.
The
girls refused a request to be interviewed.
“They
want to put it behind them. They don’t want to be reminded of the past and they
don’t want to be labelled as one of Bakker’s girls,” says Taylor, who works for
Hagar International, an Australia-based NGO.
Even
though the abuse occurred more than a decade ago, all but one of the girls is
still a minor. That’s how young they were when Bakker raped them in tiny rooms
in a filthy brothel in Svay Pak, a dusty village outside Phnom Penh that’s a
notorious pedophile paradise.
As part
of their recovery, the girls have all completed school. One or more of them may
qualify for university scholarships; others have completed training programs in
administration, child care and hairdressing.
By the
end of 2011, all had moved back to Svay Pak to live with their families or
foster families even though, as Taylor says, their families were complicit in
selling them into Svay Pak brothels.
“Our
choice would not be to have them there. But we have to believe that with what
they’ve learned about empowerment and resilience, they will be able to make the
right decisions.”
Taylor
hopes these young women have learned enough to have fulfilling lives, jobs and
relationships. She hopes that if they choose to have families, they will be
good mothers and wives.
But,
she says, “I worry that they’re naive and that they’re really not out of
danger. If they hit hard times, I don’t know if they’d go back [to a brothel].
I used to be so idealistic. Now, I realize that you have to let them go, just
as you have to let your own children go and you hope that they remember some of
the things you taught them.”
What
makes it all the more troubling, says Taylor, is that images of one of the
girls recently showed up on a pornographic website. She’s also seen images of
other sexually exploited children on kiddie porn videos sold for a couple of
bucks along the roadside in Phnom Penh.
“It’s
just sick that this can go on and on,” she says.
“How
can the survivors really ever escape?”
DAPHNE
BRAMHAM
VANCOUVER
SUN COLUMNIST
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