SRI LANKA: Scourge of Child Sex Tourism Tarnishes Country’s Image

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Jun 30 2004 (IPS) - As tourism begins to overtake traditional sources of employment in Sri Lanka, children and young people are encouraged to migrate to tourist areas, in hopes they can earn an income for themselves and their families. The lure of this easy money has caused many young Sri Lankans, including children, to trade their bodies

”We are taking tough steps to combat this menace,” noted Asoka Perera, assistant director of the Sri Lanka Tourist Board.

Luc Ferran, tourism coordinator at ECPAT International told a Colombo workshop on commercial sexual exploitation of children in tourism in Sri Lanka recently that even though child sex tourism accounts for a small percentage of sex tourism, the sheer size of the number of travellers makes it a serious problem.

Sex tourism represents 10 percent of the global tourist mark, he said at a Jun. 22 meeting organised by the Bangkok-based ECPAT – an acronym for End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes – and UNICEF. It brought together hoteliers, travel agents and tour guides and focussed on the tourism industry.

An analysis done by South Asia Partnership (SAP), an NGO with offices across the region, on child sex tourism in Sri Lanka showed that while foreign child tourists preferred boys, local Sri Lankan tourists preferred girls.

The survey which revealed some stark facts about the Sri Lankan situation, shocked many hoteliers.

”I didn’t realise the situation about child sex was that bad in Sri Lanka until today,” exclaimed Siri Gunawardene, a 30-year veteran in the trade who owns the 30-room Coral Sands Hotel in the southern coastal town of Hikkaduwa – a favourite spot for foreign paedophiles.

SAP researcher Ruwanthi Heart Gunaratne said while the laws have been tightened in 1995 and 1998 where child sex offenders face jail terms of up to 20 years, there were few cases, however, brought to the courts due to lack of enforcement.

The researcher said the problem was compounded by the fact parents, especially in the rural areas, were reluctant to admit their children had been abused for fear that they might be ridiculed and stigmatised by society.

The SAP survey in September 2003 was conducted along with similar surveys in India and Nepal, which unlike Sri Lanka, doesn’t have any documented cases of child sex offenders.

Sri Lanka’s laws are much stronger than in India or Nepal, which is also facing a serious child sex tourism problem.

The survey dealt with both local tourists – Sri Lankans travelling to towns outside their home – and foreign tourists and was conducted in seven towns where the problem is most acute.

Gunaratne cited the case of a 16 year-old girl who was being sold by her grandmother for sex purposes to local travellers in the western town of Negombo.

In the southern town of Hikkaduwa, three sisters were sold by their father – who had abused them himself – to friends and clients for just 20 rupees (20 U.S. cents) a girl just to buy his daily addiction of betel. Herat said in all their participatory research sessions with children, the children involved in sex tourism didn’t think it was wrong.

They felt someone was looking after them and also the money helped the family, she said. Some of these children owned small shops or boutiques – all by prostituting themselves.

One man who owns a posh boutique hotel in the southern town of Bentota and has a stable of cars made his money from being a beach boy involved in prostitution when he was young, one of the hoteliers at the seminar told IPS.

“They make a lot of money from prostitution,” he said.

SAP’s Gunaratne said villagers in Hikkaduwa reported how a 16 year-old girl was forced to sleep with a foreigner by her mother and became pregnant.

“This was kind of success story however because the foreigner married the girl and went to England. There is no information about the girl since then,” she said. ”However villagers cite this as a success story and say that being friendly with foreigners has its benefits.”

S. Kailaselvam, director-general of the Sri Lanka Tourist Board, said poverty is the main cause of child sex tourism since 60 percent of the population live below the poverty line.

”Families are poor and have no income. So when they find their children could make easy money from tourists, they allow the children to be friendly with them,” he said.

He said while tourist arrivals have risen since a ceasefire between government troops and Tamil rebels more than two years ago, the government was concerned this should not bring in foreigners seeking paedophiles.

”We are very committed to stopping this kind of activity,” he said citing efforts to change Sri Lanka’s reputation as a sex tourism destination.

According to official estimates, there are nearly 40,000 child prostitutes in the country of which up to 30,000 boys are used by foreign paedophiles.

In May this year, a 63-year old U.S. man was arrested here on charges of child sex abuse.

Prof. Harendra de Silva, chairman of Sri Lanka’s National Child Protection Authority said he was being charged with distributing child pornography and sexually abusing children, which is punishable with a maximum 20 years in jail.

Earlier this month a British concert pianist was jailed for two years by a British court for trying to lure Sri Lankan boys over the Internet in an investigation launched by Sri Lanka authorities.

Brian Parnell, 66, had posted a graphic advert in a Web chat room appealing for teenage boys to contact him during a 2002 South Asian tour with an opera company.

Officers from Sri Lanka’s National Child Protection Authority who scour the Internet for this kind of activity spotted Parnell’s message and then began corresponding with him pretending to be a 15-year-old boy.

De Silva, chairman of Sri Lanka’s Child Protection Authority, said that their Internet tracking system has helped to deter child sex tourism on the Net and procurement of children through websites.