RIGHTS: India Off Paedophile Destinations, Warns Judge

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sandhya Srinivasan

MUMBAI, Mar 19 2006 (IPS) - ”Let paedophiles around the world know that India should not be their destination in future,” said Mumbai judge P.S. Paranjape, as he sent two Britons off to jail, on the weekend, for sexually abusing street children under the guise of providing them shelter.

That sentence, say child rights activists, is the biggest blow, so far, against a lax trend on the part of authorities which saw India’s west coast cities of Mumbai and Goa join Sri Lanka and Thailand on the paedophile’s map.

”Not one in 10,000 cases gets reported, let alone investigated, prosecuted and convicted,” said Yug Chowdhary, advocate for Childline India, the non-government organisation (NGO) which filed the original complaint against Duncan Grant, 62 and Allan Water, 58.

”The police knew it was happening, but felt it was consensual although sex with a minor is statutory rape. And they rationalised that these children were earning some kind of living,” Chowdhury told IPS.

Speaking of difficulties with the case, Choudhary said the children were reluctant to testify because it threatened the little security they had in their deprived lives. ”They were getting shelter, food and clothes, and so they put up with it,” he said.

According to the prosecution, Grant and Waters, who had earlier served with the British navy, ran a child prostitution racket and also engaged in child sexual abuse themselves.

The two men were sentenced to six years’ imprisonment and fined 20,000 pounds sterling (35,000 US dollars) each. Of this money, the two witnesses who stayed the course of the trial will be given Rs 500,000 (11,248 dollars) each. The remaining money is to be used for rehabilitation.

”This case was not just about three boys being abused; the larger question is about sex tourism,” said writer-activist Meher Pestonji, who was first approached by the boys with their complaints of sexual abuse. ”India and Sri Lanka are becoming the new destinations for child sex tourism.”

In Thailand, said Pestonji, NGOs like End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (ECPAT) have been very active, pushed for legal action, got fleeing paedophiles extradited, and worked with local NGOS for prosecution in the other country when extradition is not an option. So paedophiles are shifting to Sri Lankan and Indian beaches. ”The boys told us that Duncan’s friends would take them for trips to Goa,” she says.

The permissive environment in Goa was exposed by the news portal ‘Tehelka’ in 2004 which highlighted the fact that the provincial government, possibly fearing a loss in tourism revenue, did little about a report brought out by the British government in 2001 on the extent of the problem in the former Portuguese enclave.

Early 2001, a court-appointed panel concluded that the management of the Anchorage shelter homes, run by the Britons, was physically and possibly sexually abusing children. When Childline India filed a police complaint based on the boys’ signed statements and videotaped interviews, Waters and Grant fled the country.

In Nov. 2001, a petition was filed in the Bombay High Court asking that the police be directed to act on Childline’s complaint. Concerted pressure from NGOs, resulted in Interpol being asked to move against Waters and Grant.

Waters was extradited from the United States to Mumbai in 2004 while Grant was tracked down to Tanzania where he had started another Anchorage children’ shelter. He surrendered to the Mumbai police in June 2005.

The case unearthed a number of irregularities which had been ignored by the Mumbai police till then. Though Grant set up the homes in 1995, they were not registered until 2001. A UK charity commission inquiry into the Anchorage shelters’ accounts noted that Grant controlled all the funds and did not report their use properly.

Earlier, a Swiss couple convicted of paedophila managed to flee the country. In 2000, 61-year-old Wilhelm Martys, described as a general manager for a multinational company, and 58-year-old Loscher Marty, were found in a Mumbai hotel, nude and recording pornographic films with street children, lured with toys and food.

According to Sangeeta Punekar of the Forum Against Child Sexual Exploitation, a member of the team which raided the Martys’ hotel room, they had been visiting the country every year since 1989, making child pornography material and then uploading it on to Internet sites.

In 2003, the Martys were convicted of paedophilia charges and sentenced to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment but managed to escape in cirumstance that suggested bribery.

There are numerous cases of foreigners being found with young children in situations that indicate inappropriate and abusive conduct, but prosecutions of ‘sex tourists’ have rarely resulted in conviction, notes Goa-based child rights activist Nishta Desai in a paper for the ‘Network of Women in the Media’ in which she lists instances of paedophiles who got away with their crimes.

”The judge’s decision is a very clear message that people are going to take this seriously,” says Maharukh Adenwalla who was appointed amicus curiae (friend of the court) in the case. ”It shows the government can do something when it wants to.”