DI's View

Soundbites from UK Trustee, Detective Inspector John Geden:

I have been involved in a several operations to support the Cambodian National Police in investigating the alleged activities of Travelling Sex Offenders. Cambodia is an attractive location for preferential paedophiles from developed countries; there is a huge disparity between the wealth of the tourist and that of the local population in many areas. This disparity forms the key ingredient that allows an offender to abuse children at will, often with the agreement of the childs parent or carer and with little chance of facing justice.

In our comfortable homes it seems unimaginable that a parent would sell their children to a western paedophile. The very worst levels of poverty, in this country and in the rest of the developed world, are still several leagues above the crushing poverty that affects the population in many common abuse destination countries. During my visit to Cambodia I witnessed children digging for food in filthy rubbish bins and walking the streets with no shoes. I saw whole families living in the most appalling conditions imaginable and I saw how a combination of poverty and HIV had blighted a generation.

When you see this poverty in its full horror you understand how, faced with the possibility of not feeding their family, a parent would find a $30 offer from a westerner an attractive offer. I know all too well that $30 is a large amount and that children have been purchased for sex for much less.

More disturbingly, large numbers of children in the SE Asian region are trafficked into the sex industry on a commercial basis. Many NGO’s provide evidence of gang-masters recruiting, buying or even just abducting young children from poor rural communities and forcing them to work in the brothels in large cities. Research indicates that thirty thousand Cambodian children are trafficked into the sex trade and brothel owners in SE Asia can buy a woman or child from the traffickers for as little as $50 US. Virgins are even more valuable and fetch between $500 US and $1000 US.

The diverse projects that CCF delivers are low cost and high impact. They ensure that the most vulnerable families are kept above the poverty line with their most basic human needs being met by the charity. The work is long term and it is sustainable and directly reduces the threat of children being sold either individually or en-masse into the global child sex trade. It is so easy to miss this dynamic amongst all of the other support that CCF delivers. It is a combination of that direct aid and the sustainable long-term projects that CCF has developed that save children from sexual exploitation.