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Child Sex Tourists Warned of Severe Penalties for Exploiting Children
Child sex tourists have been warned: “Abuse a child in this country – go to jail in yours.” This text, on billboards throughout Phnom Penh, advises foreign tourists, many of whom travel overseas to engage in sex with children, that they risk stiff penalties if they are caught.The billboard campaign is the result of a partnership between World Vision and the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which are working to stop the trafficking and exploitation of children in developing countries around the world.
Each year worldwide, an estimated one million people, predominantly women and children, are trafficked from one country to another for the purpose of servitude in the commercial sex trade, forced labor or domestic service. In Cambodia, it is estimated that one-third of commercial sex workers are children. In addition, an estimated 38 percent of child sex offenders in Cambodia tourist locales are “westerners” (North Americans, Europeans or Australians).
“The impact on children in catastrophic,” said Joe Mettimano, World Vision’s child protection policy advisor and director of its child sex tourism prevention project. “They risk trauma, disease (including HIV/AIDS), abuse, addiction, pregnancy, malnutrition, social ostracism, poverty, and often, death.”
Crimes against children are now punishable with lengthy prison sentences in the sex-abuser’s home country: any American citizen who engages in sexual activity in Cambodia with a child under the age of 18 is subject to prosecution and 30 years in a U.S. prison.
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