Invisible Chains (5 page)

Also on the tape was a view of a 2003 Cambodian calendar that indicated the probable year of Bakker's sex tourist visit to Cambodia. Investigators began to visit notorious Cambodian brothels in Svay Pak, a well-known brothel district for foreigners, and found a house that looked strikingly similar to the one on Bakker's videotape. Any doubts were resolved when investigators were able to match smudge marks on the wall with those seen in Bakker's video. This remarkable piece of evidence enabled the officers to identify the girls who had been used as child sex slaves.

A few years earlier, Bakker would have escaped prosecution for such crimes committed abroad, but in 1997, Canada joined a growing
number of countries in making it a crime for its nationals to sexually exploit children anywhere in the world.

Bakker, himself a husband and father, was charged with twenty-eight counts of sexual abuse and exploitation, including twelve charges under Canada's child sex tourism legislation. He pleaded guilty to a single count of sexual assault, two counts of sexual assault causing bodily harm, and seven counts of inviting a female under fourteen years to touch him for a sexual purpose.

The judge sentenced Bakker to ten years imprisonment, but he was required to serve only seven years after he was given “two-forone” credit for his eighteen months in pretrial custody (this pretrial credit policy had become a standard practice in the courts, one that undermined the actual sentence to be served and baffled the general public). In sentencing Bakker, the trial judge considered it an aggravating factor “that the Cambodian complainants are children enslaved into the sex trade, which only exists, or largely exists, because of Mr. Bakker and others like him.”

Despite having a thorough and well-conceived law, the enforcement record of Canada's child sex tourism law is much less impressive. Between 1997 and 2007, following the adoption of this legislation, Bakker was the only individual convicted, and his exploits were discovered by accident. Clearly, child sex tourism offences are among the most under-enforced of the entire
Criminal Code.

For the record, Section 7(4.1) of the
Criminal Code
prohibits Canadians from engaging with minors in the following practices on a global basis:

•  sexual interference

•  invitation to sexual touching

•  sexual exploitation

•  incest

•  compelling the commission of bestiality and bestiality in the presence of, or by, a child

•  child
pornography

•  parent or guardian procuring sexual activity

•  householder permitting sexual activity

•  indecent acts

•  procuring sexual services of a person under eighteen

A contrarian view: Does Canada need a child sex tourism law?

Some argue that Canada shouldn't even have such laws on the books. Among them is Bakker's defence counsel, Kevin McCullough, who was widely quoted in the media arguing against the validity of the sex tourism laws. McCullough's position was based on a claim that the law violates the sovereignty of the country where the alleged offences took place, suggesting that Canada's law improperly seeks to govern events that occur exclusively in another country.

In a quote in the
Washington Times,
Alan Young, a law professor at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto and a key player in efforts to strike down Canadian laws against prostitution, said that Canada's child sex tourism law is a form of “moral entrepreneurship.”

Young's point of view has received support from predictable quarters, not least from Robin Sharpe, who challenged Canada's child pornography laws after being charged under them. Sharpe attacked Canada's child sex tourism law in an email to the
Canadian Press
in the fall of 2007, at the time of an apparent crackdown on foreign child sex offenders in Thailand. “The purpose of the law is to pander to the moral satisfaction of the righteous and they want men convicted,” declared Sharpe. In response to criticism that Canada has not actively enforced its child sex tourism laws like other developed countries, he sarcastically replied, “We are behind the Australians and Germans— shame shame shame [sic].”

With all of these claims circulating in the media, a court challenge to the law was inevitable. It originated with Kenneth Klassen, an international art dealer and pedophile from Burnaby, British Columbia. Klassen came to the attention of the police when customs officers intercepted a suspicious package at the Vancouver
International Airport. Sent from the Philippines, it was addressed to Klassen and labelled “quilts.” Hidden inside the quilts were DVDs containing footage of girls between the ages of nine and eighteen being sexually abused by Klassen.

Following an international investigation of more than two and a half years, Klassen was charged with thirty-five counts of child sex crimes against seventeen victims in Cambodia, Colombia, and the Philippines, the incidents having taken place over five years. Among the charges laid were sexual interference, permitting sexual activity as a householder, and soliciting a person to have illicit sexual intercourse with another person.

Klassen's court challenge to Canada's child sex tourism laws failed. On December 19, 2008, the B.C. Supreme Court released its decision upholding Canada's child sex tourism legislation under both Canadian constitutional law and international law. The decision paved the way for more rigorous enforcement of the sex tourism law, and Klassen eventually pleaded guilty to numerous charges in May 2010.

Rather than offending international law, as its detractors claim, Canada's child sex tourism law is supported by both international treaties and the practice of other countries. Every major child sex tourism destination country in the world has joined Canada in signing the
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,
confirming that all children have the inherent and inalienable right to be free from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. These countries also have agreed to protect children through appropriate national, bilateral, and multilateral measures.

All known and emerging child sex tourism destination countries (except Russia) are also parties to the
Optional Protocol
to the Convention. This treaty requires signatory countries to criminalize numerous child sex offences, whether their citizens and residents commit the offences domestically or in other countries. The treaty also authorizes countries to establish extraterritorial jurisdiction over child sex offences committed by or against their nationals and residents, which means that countries around the world have agreed to child sex tourism laws that ensure offenders do not escape with impunity.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Cullen says in the
Klassen
decision: “In the absence of extraterritorial legislation, Canada would become a safer harbour for those who engage in the economic or sexual exploitation of children. The nationality principle reflects Canada's clear interest in taking steps to prevent its own nationals or residents from using the advantages of Canadian nationality and residence to perpetuate the economic and/or sexual exploitation of children in other nations.” The
Klassen
decision relied heavily on the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in
R. v. Hape,
with the majority of judges stating that “[c]ooperation between states is imperative if transnational crimes are not to be committed with impunity because they fall through jurisdictional cracks along national borders.”

Critics of Canada's child sex tourism law are either grossly misinformed about the international treaties mandating these laws or are deliberately ignoring them for their own purposes. Regardless, their arguments have failed to carry the day.

The power of the almighty dollar

Child sex tourists disproportionately drive demand for human trafficking by typically paying larger sums of money than local men, usually in much sought-after U.S. currency. In response, some venues in developing countries cater specifically to foreigners seeking such activities.

In recent years, foreigners have demanded ever-younger girls because they believe such victims are less likely to have contracted sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as HIV/AIDS. Traffickers have responded by employing more effective means of finding and offering these young victims, knowing they can charge a premium. The expanding exploitation is becoming a pressing concern for the international community—a concern that is well founded, although late to receive attention.

Each year foreign pedophiles target countless children in developing countries. It is difficult to assess the number of children in developing countries who are abused by foreigners due to the
clandestine and criminal nature of child sexual exploitation. The U.S. Department of State estimates the figure at two million children worldwide. On a country by country basis, End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT), a leading global NGO, estimates that at any given time 22,500 to 40,000 children are being sold for sex in Thailand, 60,000 to 75,000 in the Philippines, and an estimated 30,000 in Mexico. As well, the U.S. State Department's
Trafficking in Persons Report
(2008) has flagged other havens for travelling sex offenders. They include the following countries:

•  
Latin America and the Caribbean:
Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Venezuela;

•  
Asia:
Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam;

•  
Africa:
Benin, The Gambia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Togo; and

•  
Europe:
Russia.

Canada's shame: Producing the world's most-wanted pedophile

In 2007, Christopher Paul Neil, a former schoolteacher from British Columbia, became the world's most-wanted pedophile. Neil imposed a digitally constructed swirl over his face to hide his identity in photos that allegedly depicted him sexually abusing young children. He then distributed the images on websites for pedophiles. Investigators in Germany eventually unscrambled more than two hundred digitally altered images to reveal Neil's face.

The global policing agency Interpol took the extraordinary step of launching a worldwide public appeal to identify the man in the photos, resulting in hundreds of tips with five positive identifications of Neil. When Interpol published an international wanted persons notice, the Royal Thai Police followed up immediately, identifying
victims and issuing an arrest warrant for Neil. Within a few days, he'd been arrested and placed in custody, a stunning example of global co-operation to combat child sex tourism. Tried in a Thai court for the sexual abuse of two Thai brothers ages thirteen and nine, Neil received fines and a sentence of nine years in prison.

Rosalind Prober, president of Winnipeg-based Beyond Borders and North American representative to the board of ECPAT-International, believes that Canada's reputation as a country of overwhelmingly lawabiding citizens makes it easier for Canadian offenders to travel abroad and sexually abuse children. As a result, countless Canadian men have paid to sexually abuse women and children in poor countries around the world.

One admittedly limited measure of Canadian complicity is the number of men from this country who requested consular assistance in dealing with charges of child sexual abuse and exploitation offences filed against them while abroad. Between 1993 and 2008, the Department of Foreign Affairs provided such assistance to more than 150 Canadian men. Some of the countries where these acts allegedly occurred are predictable—Cambodia, Thailand, Costa Rica, Panama, and Cuba—and a few may surprise, including the United States, Mexico, and China.

These represent only those cases flagrant enough to attract attention and action from local law enforcement officials. NGOs and the media have reported many more cases, and even more Canadians have likely evaded detection entirely.

And let's be open about these men. Typically they are not travellers on short trips for business or pleasure who act on impulse. A number of recent cases involve Canadian expatriates living transient lifestyles over several years. If victims file complaints about them, these sex offenders simply travel on their Canadian passports to neighbouring countries where they can continue their activities. In Southeast Asia, Canadians move easily among Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos.

“They feel almost protected being outside of Canada,” says Sabrina Sullivan, managing director of The Future Group, of these offenders. “They feel untouchable.”

Poverty, corruption, and impunity

When a Cambodian judge declared John Keeler a pedophile and sentenced the British headmaster to three years in prison, Keeler screamed “Scum!” at the judge, attempted to throw a chair at the bench, declaring, “I paid $5,400. I am supposed to go free. This isn't justice, this is robbery!” As he was led out of the courtroom sobbing, Keeler reportedly said he was “going to die if they put me back in that hole.”

Keeler's 2001 conviction for sexually abusing underage children was a landmark case, one of few instances in Cambodia in which a foreigner was sent to prison for such crimes. Addressing police and judicial corruption remains a challenge—so much so that some local NGOs have launched detailed court monitoring programs to identify judges who routinely dismiss charges in such cases and where bribery has been alleged.

While loathsome and incomprehensible, the action of parents selling their children into slavery must be seen against the harsh reality of three factors mentioned earlier: poverty, corruption, and impunity.

Poverty helps create a supply of vulnerable children for traffickers globally. Income from the sex industry is a major contributor to Southeast Asian economies and within the last decade has accounted for an estimated 2 to 14 percent of the gross domestic product of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. According to a United Nations report on the sale of children, child prostitution, and child pornography, “Poverty relates to the supply side of the problem. It does not explain the huge global demand, with, in many instances, customers from rich countries circumventing their national laws to exploit children in other countries.”