Denpasar – Participants of the Southeast Asian Conference on Child Sex Tourism have committed to freeing the region’s tourist resorts from all forms of child sex tourism.
With the commitment to fighting child sexual exploitation and abuse which often involves transnational crime in the ASEAN region, the efforts to stop child sex tourism will be more coordinated and measurable, a statement of the conference said here on Thursday.
The statement was distributed by Ahmad Sofian of the Coalition to End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT)’s affiliated group in Indonesia.
The three-day conference presenting 25 speakers from several countries was organized by the Center for Study of Child Protection (PKPA) and ECPAT, from march 18th through 20th, 2009, with the support of the Indonesian Department of Culture and Tourism and other agencies.
The commitment was expressed by I Gusti Putu Laksaguna of the cultural and tourism ministry, Dr Surjadi Soeparman of the woman empowerment ministry, Jipy Priscilia of the Plan International, and Frans van Dijk of Terre Des Hommes (TDH) of the Netherlands.
Factors which made children prone to child sex tourism include poverty, deviated traditions, discrimination, irresponsible sexual behavior, household violence, emergency and conflict situations, corruption, HIV/AIDS, consumptive lifestyle, and communication and information technology.
Some 300 delegates from Asian, European, American and African countries joined the meeting discussing sex tourism in Southeast Asia from the number of perspectives. Data from the World Tourism Organization (WTO) states that more than 2 million children are involved in child sex tourism.
According to ECPAT, child sex tourism is the commercial sexual exploitation of children by people who travel from one place to another to engage in sexual acts with minors. ECPAT defines child sex tourism as sexual transactions involving anyone under the age of 18.
News by International Bali Post
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