Child protection in the Internet age: South Asia’s challenges

Luc Ferran "In a climate of increasing corporate social responsibility, it is hoped that the IT and travel industries will be open to deliberations with NGOs and with each other on the prevention of sexual exploitation of children. Commercial sexual exploitation of children, IT and the tourism industry Midway through the current decade, our increasingly interconnected world faces a number of new challenges and opportunities. The era of globalisation, vaunted at some times and disdained at others, is watching information technology take precedence over all other forms of technological know-how. While government administrations negotiate the acquisition of new warfare-related technologies, new transportation machinery and energy expertise; it seems that at the core of it all is the issue of managing information and cyber highways. In fact, these all important enhanced information technologies offer citizens around the world communication opportunities never dreamed of previously. Coupled with the ever-expanding transportation and travel industries; telecommunications and the cyber world have opened new vistas for people and cultures to engage with each other. This is both exciting and intimidating. While rarely given the same importance as the threat of terrorism or war, the issue of child protection in this technologically-savvy age is a grave concern. There is no doubt that the simultaneous growth of the IT industry and the travel sector has placed children living in tourism destinations at greater risk of sexual exploitation by foreign tourists as well as domestic ones. South Asia is no exception to this trend. In fact, certain research projects have revealed that the tourist destinations of South Asia are witnessing an increase in the vulnerabilities of children to sexual exploitation and abuse. Though not a new phenomenon in South Asia, child sex tourism (CST), also labeled sexual exploitation of children in tourism (SECT), is being observed at more close quarters now. The issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) is the use of children for the sexual gratification of an adult in exchange for cash, food or some other form of consideration, usually given to a third party. CSEC can fall under a number of categories: child prostitution, child pornography or the trafficking of children for sexual purposes. Subset forms of CSEC include early marriage or compensated dating ( Enjo kôsai, or “dating for assistance”, in English usually called compensated dating, is a practice in Japan where high school-aged girls are paid by older men to accompany them on dates and/or to render sexual services. Most observers, especially overseas, regard it as a form of prostitution). Child sex tourism or sexual exploitation of children in tourism is another subset of CSEC. It is defined as the commercial sexual exploitation of children by a person or persons travelling outside their home country or region. It can be perpetrated by both citizens of a foreign country or by domestic nationals. In the past, certain countries have been severely affected by this problem, notably Thailand, Brazil and the Philippines. Despite making significant strides in combating this violation of children’s rights and physical integrity, these countries are still struggling to prevent abuse by domestic and international culprits. In the South Asian region, certain areas have been documented as child sex tourism destinations over the past decade. In particular, coastal areas of Sri Lanka and Goa in India have been considered the hubs for this trade. These areas were well known within the paedophilia circles as places with easy access to children. Action has been taken by local authorities to stem the flow of child sex tourists into the affected tourist destinations but the issue remains a pressing one. Fortunately, a number of South Asian countries remain relatively free from the scourge. The sea and sun destination of the Maldives has not yet been tainted, nor have Bhutan, Pakistan or Bangladesh shown much evidence of sexual exploitation of children in tourism, even though the problem persists in the local prostitution circuit on a large scale. Areas that have witnessed a rise in commercial sexual exploitation of children do not typically have a tourism model that lends itself to such activities. The adventure-oriented tourism that dominates Nepal’s travel industry has witnessed a rise in abuse of children by tourists in particular, with clear links to information technology. In a recent study, a staggering 95 per cent of street children who had reported physical contact with tourists affirmed having had their picture taken in the nude with tourists.(1) Though it cannot be confirmed if these pictures have actually been scanned and distributed in cyber space but this is a distinct possibility. Furthermore, use of the Internet in Nepalese tourism has grown considerably. The Internet has also eased the processes of booking travel, devising personalized tours of the country and negotiating prices. Securing tourism and travel in this way means that tourists are less and less dependent on formal or organised adventure packages which might limit their access to children; should this be their intention in traveling to the country. This is not to say that independently-acquired travel packages necessarily lead to child exploitation but to underscore the unsupervised nature of tourism that tourists can engage in as a result of the freedom afforded by Internet bookings. In a country such as Nepal where 5000 children live and work on the street and another 8000 have been displaced as a result of recent conflicts, this means tourists have easy access to vulnerable children.(2) Dangerous technologies? Perhaps the most glaring example of increased sexual exploitation of children is the exponential proliferation of child pornography on the Internet. At the South Asia Yokohama Mid-term Review in September 2004; a meeting held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, which looked at the fulfillment of government commitments made in Yokohama in 2001 to protect children from CSEC, Martin Dawes commented that, “The spread of technology, particularly computerisation and the Internet, accentuated the child pornography problem due to the exponential growth of computer-linked child pornography.”(3) Yet child pornography on the Internet is not the only concern. There are other elements of the information industry that facilitate SECT equally. Internet chat rooms and sites can, in fact, facilitate sexual exploitation of children in tourism quite easily. Evidence has emerged that tourists seeking sex with children have used Internet chat rooms to find and groom children in tourist destinations before travelling there to engage in the abuse. One instance of how this happens is that of Brian P., a British national who was jailed for soliciting sex with minors in Sri Lanka over the Internet. In 2002, Brian P. posted an advertisement soliciting sex with minors on an Internet site for gay teens in Sri Lanka ahead of his arrival with an opera company. The advertisement was spotted by an officer of the National Child Protection Authority who then posed as a 15-year-old boy and continued the correspondence to secure evidence of Brian P.’s intention to obtain sex with a minor. He was convicted under the recent UK sex offences extraterritorial legislation for attempting to incite a male under the age of 16 to commit a serious sexual act and attempting to incite a male under the age of 16 to an act of gross indecency. He was the first to be convicted under such legislation. While this demonstrates that there exists legislation to address child sex tourism as facilitated by the Internet, Brian P.’s conviction is only a solitary successful case. One can only wonder at the numbers of tourist who were actually able to set up such meetings and still go scot-free. The Internet can also be used by closed circles of paedophiles to provide information on the availability of children in tourist destinations or to exchange child pornography. While they must often use sophisticated techniques to avoid any unwanted attention from law enforcement agencies or NGOs monitoring the Internet, child pornographers and child pornography consumers are able to post and access images of children being abused with relative ease. An Italian NGO named Rainbow Phone estimated that the number of paedophilia websites increased by 70 per cent between 2002-03, reaching a total of 17,016 sites and signaling the gravity of the situation.(4) A peculiar problem is that, thanks to the Internet, geography is almost a moot point in the dissemination of child pornography. It is difficult to assess where most child pornography is being produced since domains which carry child pornography can switch rapidly. Given that a quarter of the two million children who are sexually exploited in the world are from South Asia, it likely that a large percentage of child pornography is generated in the region. Apart from the Internet, other ICTs too pose threats to the safety and privacy of children. The widespread use of mobile phones, especially those equipped with phone-cam videos, enables a rapid dissemination of pornographic material involving youth and children. In a well-publicised 2004 case, an Indian boy distributed video footage of his former girlfriend engaging in sexual activity, proving that new telecommunications technology can be used to exploit/humiliate minors. This particular case led to a widespread public and legal debate on who should be held responsible for the dissemination of pornographic materials involving minors. Does the responsibility lie with the producers of the material or with the carrier of such material? A role to play Such questions are difficult to answer and legal responses will surely vary from country to country, in accordance to legislation in effect as well as political will to enforce it. There is an overall lack of appropriate legislation in South Asia, as in the rest of the world, with regard to information technology and child pornography. Thus, NGOs (including ECPAT International) and government agencies are putting more and more pressure on the information technology industry to take charge of child protection in the cyber space. In other words, there is a need for IT companies to mimic the kind of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of other sectors, such as the travel or apparel industries, which has sought to provide protection to children from exploitation, whether sexual or labour-related. Fortunately, there are a few precedents of self-regulation and social responsibility by the telecommunications and IT sectors. One notable example is that of British Telecommunication (BT). In 2004, the company established a mechanism by which access to illegal child pornography is blocked. The project, entitled “Cleanfeed” came as the result of intense lobbying by children’s organisations in the UK and marks a milestone in information technology CSR. The possibility of blocking such websites proves that telecommunications companies are capable of implementing child protection measures, if pressurised sufficiently. The industry can also provide increased protection by establishing better and more efficient hotlines to report sexual exploitation of children in cyber space. While there are a number of NGOs and government agencies working on Internet safety, there needs to be an increased collaboration between these organisations and the companies or service providers themselves. The above mentioned effort by British Telecommunication exemplifies how this can be done, as it was the British Home Office, which approached BT following pressure from John Carr, an Internet adviser to the children’s charity, NCH. ECPAT International, an international agency working on the issue of CSEC, recently launched a campaign aiming to engage the IT industry in providing further protection to children from exploitation in cyber space. The campaign, entitled ‘Make-IT-safe’, is an Internet petition which can be signed by anyone who wishes to put pressure on the industry to act and represents the kind of campaigning that is needed in light of the growing incidence of sexual exploitation through information technology. Unfortunately, while there has been much debate around the issue of carriers and child pornography following the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) case in India, there are too few initiatives to engage the industry in South Asia. The link between cyber space/IT, the travel industry in South Asia and exploitation of children needs to be further explored and understood. It is clear that increased accessibility has placed more children at risk of sexual exploitation, as in the example of Brian P. in Sri Lanka. What this means is that the industries should be interacting with each other to deliberate on how protection can be provided to children in tourism destinations. To begin with, travel and tourism companies should ensure that their services are not advertised on sites that present or market a destination as one where sexual abuse or exploitation is permissible. Furthermore, travel and IT companies should work together to ensure that no information is exchanged, bookings made or inappropriate materials passed on by tourists through their respective services or on their premises. The two sectors must also work together to make certain that pornographic materials involving minors are not available on televisions in hotels or other tourism establishments. ECPAT International encourages cross-sectoral dialogue which will hopefully result in new ideas and safety mechanisms. In a climate of increasing corporate social responsibility, it is hoped that the IT and travel industries will be open to deliberations with NGOs and with each other on the prevention of sexual exploitation of children. Solutions need to be found quickly as the sectors in question are expanding rapidly and reaching into areas of the world that may not be prepared to handle the arrival of ill-intentioned tourists and the complexities of the information industry. Endnotes 1 C. Beddoe & L.Ferran (Ed.s). Situational Analysis Studies on Child Sex Tourism in Tourist Destinations of India, Nepal andSri Lanka. ECPAT International. Thailand. December 2003. 2 CWIN Nepal. Children in Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal. December 2003. Available at http://www.cwin.org.np/press_room/factsheet/ children_in_nepal.htm 3 Agence France Press English Wire. South Asia Child Sex Trade Booming in Internet Age/UNICEF. Colombo, Sri Lanka. 30 September 2004. 4 Rainbow Phone. Paedophilia: 17 THD Websites earmarked in 2003. 16 January 2004. Palermo, Italy. Available at http:// www.telefonoarcobaleno.com/new/ Anewsdettaglio_en.php?id_news=444 Source: http://home.veicnet.net.au/ Author: Luc Ferran is the Programme Officer for Combating Child Sex Tourism at the ECPAT International Secretariat in Bangkok.

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