http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/17/AR2006081701059.html
washington post wrote: BANGKOK, Thailand -- One pedophile had plastic surgery and jumped bail to elude authorities. Another paid thousands of dollars to the families of his victims after they agreed to ask that charges be dropped.
Across Asia, pedophiles have long taken advantage of weak and corrupt law enforcement systems, endemic poverty and networks of like-minded criminals.
The announcement that authorities had arrested American John Mark Karr in Thailand as a suspect in the 1996 murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was viewed as rare victory in the region.
Karr was arrested Wednesday, a day after he began teaching second grade in Bangkok, District Attorney Mary Lacy told reporters in Colorado. Karr told investigators he drugged and sexually assaulted the child beauty queen before accidentally killing her, according to a senior Thai police officer, who was briefed about the interview.
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U.S. Ambassador John Miller, who heads the State Department's people trafficking office, said part of the challenge of catching pedophiles is that many come across "as upstanding citizens" who are doctors, teachers and soldiers.
"This is not easy work," Miller told The Associated Press, noting the U.S. government has extradited and convicted 29 Americans for abusing children since 2003, about half of the cases occurring in Asia. "We've started to make progress, but we haven't made anywhere near enough progress."
Hundreds of thousands of girls and boys are believed to work in the sex trade in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and other countries.
Some of their customers _ mostly older men _ commit their crimes with relative impunity, walking hand-in-and with underage girls in Bangkok or with boys in a resort hotel on the Indonesian island of Bali. The riverfront in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh also is a favorite spot, where pedophiles buy sex from street children.
"In my country, I never meet super-extra available boys," Italian Alain Filippe Berutti said after he was convicted in 2002 of having sex with Cambodian youngsters.
But now we're hearing about Afghanistan...
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/brinkley/article/Afghanistan-s-dirty-little-secret-3176762.php
Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."
All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, "Pashtun Sexuality," startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked - and repulsed.
For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.
"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."
And even the Phillipines wants to get in on the action...
http://www.news.va/en/news/asiaphilippines-profiteering-traffickers-and-pedop
VA Times wrote:Manila - They are already called "orphans of Yolanda" . There are thousands of children who have become orphans after the storm that struck the province of Leyte. And they are the most vulnerable victims, as they find themselves alone, wandering through the rubble, looking for someone to take care of them.
"These children are the main victims of jackals who seize them for child abuse or human trafficking. It is a horrible prospect, but it is extremely realistic in the case of natural disasters. These children are in need of immediate attention, to be saved from the clutches of traffickers and pedophiles": this is the complaint launched to Fides Agency by Fr. Shay Cullen, SSC, a missionary from San Colombano, who has been living in the Philippines since 1969, known for his social and pastoral commitment, especially for child victims of sexual exploitation. The missionary explains the phenomenon to Fides: "Under the pretext of saving or taking care of children, traffickers kidnap them and sell them to pedophiles. Or they earn large sums of money by providing the children for illegal adoptions. Even worse, they introduce them into the world of prostitution, making them slaves of sexual exploitation".As Fides learns, the Philippine authorities are aware of the risk and are monitoring the phenomenon in the post -typhoon Haiyan phase. The Department of Social Welfare and Development of the Philippine government, in fact, has already sent an urgent message to all humanitarian workers engaged in Leyte, pointing out "the high risk of child trafficking" in the areas devastated by the typhoon. The little ones will go down in history as "the lost children of Yolanda".
