A favoured haven … for paedophiles

From Tom Sullivan in Goa

INDIAN beach capital Goa risks becoming a new Asian hub for child sex tourism because of its lax attitude to paedophiles, say activists.

Child welfare groups claim paedophile cases go unreported and prosecutions are rare despite strict child protection laws and mounting evidence of a thriving child sex industry.

Only two foreigners have been jailed in Goa since their first paedophile case hit the headlines over a decade ago.

Less than ten suspects, almost all elderly European men, including several Britons, have ended up in court.

Goa’s deputy chief of police, speaking at a UN conference last month, said Goa “has got the tag of ‘favoured haven’ for paedophiles”.

However, he added that the state, which receives two million foreign visitors each year, has not had a single reported child sex abuse case involving a foreigner since 2003.

It is impossible to know the full extent of child sex abuse in Goa, but media reports suggest hundreds of paedophiles travel regularly to the region.

It costs about £350 to traffick children from poorer Indian states such as Bihar and Orissa. When they arrive in Goa they are “hired out” for between £500 and £1000 a month – the younger the child the higher the price.

The children of impoverished migrant labourers are also at risk, easily lured by paedophiles, sometimes with the consent of their parents.

“We see foreigners giving money and gifts to children or their families and then going off with them,” said Mathew Kurian, founder of a local child rescue group.

“But when we report it to the police they refuse to act. They won’t even file a case unless they have concrete evidence.”

An anti-paedophilia group, Children’s Rights in Goa (CRG), has documented a string of cases where suspects have jumped bail, escaped custody, intimidated witnesses or been acquitted due to lack of evidence.

“There is a fear of damaging Goa’s reputation as a tourist destination,” explained the group’s director Nishtha Desai, adding that the police are often reluctant to charge suspects.

“We have complained about suspected paedophiles but none have been charged,” she said.

“In one case we raided a room accompanied by the police in Calangute [Goa’s busiest resort]. We found a British man in bed with a 13-year-old local girl. We could not do anything as there was not enough forensic evidence.”

Desai’s organisation has called for suspected paedophiles to be denied entry visas. “Surely they should be prevented from coming back here? As far as we know nobody has been stopped.”

Measures to tackle child sex tourism in other Asian countries have been more successful in securing extraditions and prosecutions. “Stricter law enforcement in Thailand and Sri Lanka could lead to more paedophiles coming to the coasts of India,” said a spokesman for the UN Office for Drugs and Crime.

Anti-sex tourism campaigns aimed at beach resorts and hotels have had some success, said Desai, but they have also led sex offenders to become more secretive.

“Now we have more reports of houses in villages being used rather than hotels. They are less overt.”

A high-profile sting operation by the news magazine Tehelka caused an uproar in 2004 when beach shack restaurant owners were filmed on hidden camera offering underage boys for sex for as little as £8 a night.

The magazine tracked sex tourists from Germany, France, Holland, Sweden and the UK and exposed a bogus event management company used to hire out children.

Children are also sent to houses ostensibly as domestic servants, accompanied by a female pimp posing as their mother.

Other paedophile rings run bogus child shelters and orphanages. CRG has identified at least 50 registered homes which it wants investigated.

A ruling earlier this year by a Bombay court saw two Britons given six-year jail sentences and heavy fines for abusing street children in a home that they ran.

For activists such as Desai it was a rare piece of welcome news.

“It was a very positive signal from the courts. I hope it will have an impact in Goa,” she said. “If we could get more paedophiles convicted that would be the best deterrent.”

28 May 2006

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