9 Asian Nations Join To Fight Child Cybersex Abuse

[Jai Dee]

Trainees from 9 Asian nations fight child cybersex abuse

Child protection advocates from nine Asian countries assembled here on Monday for training on combating child sex abuse in cyberspace.

Fifty-four child protection advocates including police officers, lawyers, judges and NGO workers from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam are

attending an international workshop jointly organised by the British embassies in Cambodia and Thailand and software giant Microsoft Corporation.

The regional workshop is part of an ongoing commitment by the British Government to work with a wide range of partners to combat child sex abuse throughout the world, in connection with cyber paedophiles,

according to the UK embassy in Bangkok.

The workshop is aimed to instruct participants about techniques used by paedophiles to target victims through the internet, and offer practical advice on how to combat this. In addition, the training also broadens international co-operation, and aid capacity building and information sharing within and between the countries of the region, said embassy officials.

Although children in some countries like Cambodia can't get access to the Internet, they are still vulnerable to be sexually abused. Paedophiles use the Internet to find locations to get easy access to children, according to Microsoft Asia Pacific executive Katherine Bostick.

They post photos of children abused by relatives and friends on the Internet and profit from selling them, she said.

Quoting a report from NBC's Dateline TV, Ms. Bostick said there are 50,000 child pornography predators online at present. "The internet connects children and paedophiles. There is no border, but it's a global problem," she said.

The training, held March 26-April 6 at the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in Bangkok, was designed and delivered by experts from the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) in partnership with associate members from the Virtual Global Task Force (VGT).

VGT is an international alliance of law enforcement agencies from Australia, Canada, the UK and the US, working to protect children from sexual exploitation.

Source: TNA - 27 March 2007

[ourmanflint]

What a fantastic waste of money... and ever so slighly condescending from the British government!

There is absolutely no point in even talking about cyber crimes, when in many of these asian countries actual real crimes against children are happening on a daily basis, even as some posters here have said , right under the noses of the Thai government. The sentiment is right, but the actions are arse about face, places like Bangladesh don't even have a useable internet network so talking about cybercrime is ludicrous.

What the British Government and others really need to do is to track all known child sex offenders in and out of the countries they visit or maybe they should take away their passports for 10 years.

I wish they were serious enough to do something radical!!!

[atlastaname]

If you are going to start tracking people shouldn't it be ALL offenders , not just child sex ones . Seems like you think its ok for murderers released after serving their sentence to be allowed free travel but not child sex offenders . Surely its fairer to be all or nothing?

Doubt this thread will last long ...everything on this topic is always shut down pronto.

[mogoso]

If you are going to start tracking people shouldn't it be ALL offenders , not just child sex ones . Seems like you think its ok for murderers released after serving their sentence to be allowed free travel but not child sex offenders . Surely its fairer to be all or nothing?

Doubt this thread will last long ...everything on this topic is always shut down pronto.

Seems to local and federal police in the US, as well as a television show, entice the pedos pretending to be underage children, and arrest them when they show up for a rendevous. I think rather than track them on the internet, get them to show up in Thailand or where ever and arrest them and try them there. Gotta be worse than any prison in their own country, They could become somebodys biatch in the Bangkok Hilton.

[cdnvic]

Gotta be worse than any prison in their own country, They could become somebodys biatch in the Bangkok Hilton.

That doesn't happen in Thai prisons, or is very rare.

Far worse things go on in most western prisons.

[astral]

Here we go again. Another example of the "Do Gooder" brigade drumming up support and money for their

own little projects, without any idea of what goes on in the real world.

"The internet connects children and paedophiles. There is no border, but it's a global problem," she said.

I seriously doubt that is true over here

Although there is increasing access to the internet in S and SE Asia, what percentage of children

are fluent enough in any language other than their own, in order to be able to communicate with these paedophiles?

Very small indeed. Just look at the standards of English in Thai schools!

Although children in some countries like Cambodia can't get access to the Internet,

they are still vulnerable to be sexually abused.

So the problem has little to do with the internet.

In the Macarthy days used to be "Reds under the Bed", now it is "Peds in the Bed".

[Thai-Spy]

Some good points are raised in this thread, but the scope of he conference seems to go well beyond simply breaking the direct connection between predator and prey which, as noted, would rely on a common language and internet access by the potential victims.

It also includes intelligence sharing initiatives between governments, for one thing. And another stated goal is to identify how and where paedophiles share information online. It's merely not the dog-and-pony show some people are trying to portray is as being, and without knowing what the conference costs and what value is to be derived from it, it's irresponsible to judge it in economic terms.

Seems to local and federal police in the US, as well as a television show, entice the pedos pretending to be underage children, and arrest them when they show up for a rendevous. I think rather than track them on the internet, get them to show up in Thailand or where ever and arrest them and try them there.

That might not work so well offshore where each country has a different burden of proof, especially as regards conspiracy or intent in advance of the primary paedophile crime. But in the case of the USA the provisions of the PROTECT Act would apply and the offender could be intercepted, tried and convicted without leaving America.