Child Sex Tourism Prevention Project Partners

World Vision’s Child Sex Tourism Prevention Project aims to deter potential child sex tourists before they harm children, and provides assistance to U.S. and other law enforcement agencies in their work to identify and prosecute offenders.

World Vision has placed a wide-range of deterrent messages both in the United States and in destination countries to make very clear that engaging in sex with minors overseas violates U.S. law, and offenders will be prosecuted in the U.S. They also communicate the harm and pain caused to children by sexual exploitation.

Messages are displayed via the following venues:

>	Thirty-second Public Service Announcement, running on the CNN Airport Network (in major U.S. airports), CNN International (Asia and Latin America), and the United Airlines in-flight video system on international flights to Latin America;
>	Billboards and posters in destination airports, displayed throughout the Immigration and Customs areas;
>	Magazine ads, placed in major newspapers and tourist magazines of destination countries;
>	Street signs, displayed in key tourist areas, including near establishments that cater to sex tourists;
>	Brochures and stickers, displayed in taxis and hotels where U.S. tourists tend to congregate.
>	Web banners on MSN.com and Yahoo.com

All messages include the logos of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and destination country law enforcement agencies, including Ministries of Tourism and Justice, and local police. Ads send a powerful message that U.S. and destination country law enforcement actively seek child sex tourists and will prosecute these pedophiles to the furthest extent of their laws.

World Vision assists U.S. ICE by helping to identify American sex tourists and provide information that could lead to their prosecution and conviction. In addition, World Vision works closely with the national governments of Thailand, Cambodia, Mexico, Costa Rica and Brazil, which have been extremely supportive of this effort to protect their children from sexual exploitation.

World Vision and ICE also provide training to WV staff overseas and others dedicated to protecting children, who serve as extra sets of “eyes and ears” to help law enforcement pursue these sexual predators.

In this way, World Vision brings together national governments and law enforcement from both the United States and sex tour destination countries to establish a united front in combating the sexual exploitation of children. The organization prepares its staff, other non-governmental organizations and ordinary citizens to join the cause.

For more than 50 years, World Vision has been working to protect children from abuse and neglect. This crime prevention and deterrence campaign was launched in 2004. Since its inception, funding for the Child Sex Tourism Prevention Project has steadily increased, including $300,000 in private funding, a $600,000 U.S. State Department grant and a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

U.S. Department of State

The U.S. Department of State is strongly committed to combating the crime of child sex tourism and is working with concerned non-governmental organizations to support the efforts of US law enforcement overseas. Given World Vision's extensive partnership network in more than 100 countries, its commitment to excellence in child-focused development programs, and 53 years of experience, the State Department selected World Vision as a partner to combat child sex tourism in Cambodia, Costa Rica, and Thailand, where Americans are known to travel for child sex tourism.

The State Department provided World Vision with initial seed money to launch the initiative in 2004. Beyond funding these initiatives, the State Department relies on the expertise and information provided by professionals in World Vision’s U.S offices and relief and development staff working in the affected countries.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

In July 2003, the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched Operation Predator, a comprehensive law enforcement strategy to identify and arrest foreign national pedophiles, human traffickers, child pornographers, and international sex tourists. To date, Operation Predator has resulted in more than 5000 domestic and international arrests, and the removal of more than 1,500 child sex predators from the United States. Since the Protect Act was passed, 25 US citizens have been arrested on charges of sexually abusing children overseas, in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Russia. Of the first six cases that have gone to court, all have resulted in convictions.
As part of Operation Predator, ICE established an important partnership with World Vision. ICE attachés, local law enforcement and World Vision experts work together in the United States and abroad to streamline reporting and investigation protocols to more effectively root out child sex tourism.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

In 2004, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) provided a $ 1 million grant to World Vision, to expand the Child Sex Tourism Prevention campaign into Brazil and Mexico, countries where child sex tourism is an exploding criminal issue. The monies were made available as part of a Presidential Initiative, to involve other US child-focused government agencies in efforts to combat child sex tourism. As a grant from the HHS Administration for Children and Families, World Vision has cooperated with these US government experts to counter a growing criminal threat to U.S. and international childrens’ health, welfare and human rights.