LATEST
NEWS FROM YOKOHAMA
Time
to Chip Away at Male Demand for Child Sex -- Experts
By
Marwaan Macan-Markar
YOKOHAMA, Japan, Dec 18 (IPS) - When Denise Ritchie, a 45-year-old
New Zealand lawyer, called on men in her country to participate
in a public event to highlight the dominant role that men play
among child sex abusers, she was asked to ''get lost'' .
That reaction was only one of the many hostile responses that
local newspapers ran in their letters section in October, following
the publication of a news story that had Ritchie urging the
men to participate in a 'Day of Shame' to protest the commercial
sexual exploitation of children.
She had proposed observing the 'Day of Shame' to underscore
the role men play in the sexual abuse of young people - indeed,
she said that between 1996 and 2000, 99.1 percent of the convicted
cases of child sex abuse in New Zealand involved male offenders.
Other letter writers, all of them men, declared they were ''saddened
and angered'' by Ritchie's initiative, and insisted that men
should ''stay proud'', instead of bowing to ''the request to
turn Father's Day into a day of shame.''
Since then, Ritchie, who has been dubbed by the local press
as the ''Shame Dame,'' has also learnt a fundamental lesson:
a tough battle lies ahead for those determined to prevent children
from sex abuse by drawing attention to the ones who drive the
demand -- the sex exploiter.
''If we are not prepared to deal with the issue of demand, we
will not stamp out the commercial sexual exploitation of children''
said Ritchie, who as a child rights activist has been championing
this issue since 1999. ''We need a clear strategy to deal with
demand.''
However, those like Ritchie appear to be a minority at the ongoing
Second World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation
of Children here. Much of the discussions, debates and awareness
efforts address the child victims of the sex trade, who run
into more than a million in Asia, and other issues, for instance.
''The demand issue has been completely sidelined,'' affirmed
Gracy Fernandes, a child rights activists from India. ''There
are very few non-governmental organisations dealing with it,
very few strong statements to take it up here.''
''It has to be made a central issue, a conscious topic,'' added
Fernandes, research director at the College of Social Work in
Mumbai, India. ''The exploiters cannot be ignored in trying
to protect the victims.''
But during the times the demand issue has been addressed here
at the Yokohama congress, there has already a significant change
from the way the sex exploiter is being described and analysed.
According to discussions at the workshops here, the sex exploiter
does not fit into a single profile. This is unlike the first
world congress on child exploitation in Yokohama in 1996, where
the sex offender was largely seen as a paedophile, experts and
activists say.
''There are people (adult and child, male and female) who sexually
exploit children in many different ways, for many different
reasons and in many different social contexts,'' states a conference
backgrounder on the sex exploiter.
''If there is to be real progress in eliminating commercial
sexual exploitation of children, and indeed non-commercial forms,
then this diversity must be recognised, understood and used
as a basis for programming,'' it adds.
Swedish psychologist Anders Nyman illustrated this with evidence
about sex exploiters worldwide, most of who are male. ''One-third
of all sex crimes against children committed globally are by
those who are under 18 years,'' said Nyman, who works for the
international child rights lobby Save the Children.
Equally significant is for society to dispel the myth that foreign
tourists are key players driving the demand in developing countries,
added child rights activist Juan Manuel Garland, pointing to
the countries in Latin America as examples.
''In Brazil and Peru, there are local tourists who seek young
girls for sex,'' revealed Garland, a coordinator at Save the
Children's South America office. ''They believe that younger
is better because it also gives the men more power, more control
over the girls.''
Garland says the Latin American cultural concept of machismo
is a key factor behind such behaviour. ''Machismo definitely
contributes to this in other places too, like Chile, Nicaragua
and other parts of Central America. You hear it in the speech
of the men.''
The sex tourist, however, has been notorious in Costa Rica and
the Dominican Republic.
In countries like Kenya and South Africa, on the other hand,
men continue to exploit girls living in poverty. These exploiters,
called ''sugar daddies,'' are largely older men who ''provide
youthful sexual partners, including adolescents, with long-term
financial support of gifts, accommodation or access to entertainment
and a lifestyle that would be otherwise beyond the youth's reach,''
according to the conference backgrounder.
''Combating the sex exploiter requires more than a legal approach,''
asserted Vitit Muntarbhorn, a child rights expert from Thailand.
''We need an integrated strategy to combat demand.''
Such efforts have to include cultural and social action too,
added Vitit, who teaches law at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.
''We have also to acknowledge how the demand has changed since
Stockholm, largely due to advances in technology, like the Internet,
and the increase in trafficking.''
But activists like Fernandes from India and Garland from Peru
admit that there has been little effort in their respective
regions to combat demand. ''Even when we sought funding for
a national study on who the exploiter is, to stop the demand
for child sex in India, we did not get any money,'' conceded
Fernandes.
For Ritchie, the success of the Yokohama congress depends on
what commitments and the actions are made across nations to
eliminate the demand for child sex. ''We can't deceive the children.
How can you end the commercial sexual exploitation without eliminating
demand?''(END)
