Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Child Prostitution - Asia’s Sickness (Part One)

By Fred C. Wilson III

“As the gap between the rich and poor grows wider, destitute Asians are increasingly selling their most valuable property: their children.”

- Alex Perry: Time Magazine of Asia-

Shocking Statistics

Imagine children thirteen or younger being forced to have sex with as many as 20 to 50 men a night. The ten year old Indian girl living in Mumbai (Bombay) who told her captors that premarital sex was wrong and refused to engage in acts of sexual depravity; to break her will she was placed inside a tiny closet and left for four days with no food nor water in the dark her only companion a venomous cobra trained to strike and kill her if she moved the slightest. The horrified child was released only after she agreed to their demands. The child was previously ‘purchased’ from her impoverished parents.

Do poor Asian children want to sell their bodies for sex-NO! They’re forced into prostitution by poverty and once ‘in’ getting ‘out’ is next to impossible. Even if they do exit the sex trade they’re mentally and emotionally ruined for life. Take the case of the little Cambodian orphan girl who was rescued from sexual slavery by an American couple on holiday in that Southeast Asian country. They fed the girl, bathed her, gave the child decent clothes and tried legally to take her to America only to have the Cambodian government refuse the child’s exit visa on grounds of some bureaucratic technicality. Not discouraged the kindly couple tried to adopt the orphan but no amount of paperwork or pleading swayed hard-hearted Cambodian officials. Eventually the couple left Cambodia once their vacation visa expired. The child was subsequently recaptured, gang raped, then brutally murdered. Her former captors dismembered the girl and tossed her bloody body parts in the streets to scare other child prostitutes from running away. Similar scenarios are taking place as you read this article and the problem is getting worse by the hour!

Why is child prostitution in Asia commonplace and growing: poverty that ancient enemy of humanity and sexual depravity among Western men with too much money and too little morals. Here are some grim statistics:

According to the July 26, 1997 edition of the Philippine Daily Enquirer there are over 375,000 women and children in prostitution, most of them are aged 15 – 20, are from semi-rural and urban backgrounds and have been victims of incest and sexual abuse. With the economic situation in the Philippines growing grimmer by the hour this number is undoubtedly much higher.

Thailand’s Natural Healing Path study of child Prostitution says: Brothel agents travel into the rural areas of North Thailand and look for virgins they can buy or ‘rent’ from their parents. Often they lie and tell parents that their daughters will work in Bangkok’s hotels or at otherwise respectable jobs while in reality they will be selling their bodies as often as several times daily to make pimps money. Once the girls are enslaved there is no escape. They are lucky if they are not beaten or killed. The girls will see none of their money. The pimps keep it all to make girls pay their upkeep. Pimps charge them room, board, and the initial money that was paid to their parents. The report went on to say that one young girl had been locked in a room and forced to ‘serve’ upward to ten men a day; the girl was only eight years old!

On assignment to Cambodia ABC News Blogs Senior Foreign Correspondent Jim Sciutto said that girls young as 9 – 13 work in Phnom Penh as prostitutes. In the Cambodian capitol alone there are well over 1,000 child prostitutes. Some child sex peddlers use such brutal policies as beatings, slitting tongues, and electrocution to arrest any thoughts of escape by the children.
In high-tech India a survey conducted by the Indian Health Organization of a red light district in Mumbai (Bombay) revealed that:

· 25% of the child prostitutes had been abducted and sold.

· 6% had been raped and sold.

· 8% had been sold by their fathers after forcing them into incestuous relationships.

· More than 20,000 girls between ages 9-20 years old are brought every year from Nepal to India to work in Mumbai’s brothels.

· 5% to 18% of Mumbai child prostitutes are adolescents between 13 and 18 years old.

· Of the 200,000,000 people worldwide who are suffering from sexually transmitted diseases some 50,000,000 live in India!

Odd Girl Out

In Japan it’s ‘odd girl out.’ In the super-rich Japanese economic giant young girls sell themselves voluntarily. It’s called: enjo kosai meaning compensated dating. Japanese girls as young as 9 through 16 offer sexual acts to middle-aged men in exchange for money, fine clothes, jewelry, electronic gadgets, and other so-called modern ‘necessities.’ Child prostitution in Japan is voluntary and a high tech ‘industry’ as girls seeking clients advertise over Internet message boards, street posters, cell phones, magazine and Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) ads along with other modern advertising methods. According to World Magazine the practice of enjo kosai is exploding.

Sex Tourism in Asia

Child sex is ‘big business.’ The multi-national sex industry gross millions of dollars each year and the market is growing rapidly. Children are kidnapped, sold into sexual slavery, and then resold on line by unscrupulous traders in human flesh. It’s as if slavers of old have gotten new leases on life only this time it’s trading little children. A few years ago my wife and I booked a flight to Bangkok, Thailand. To our surprise one early evening in the central business district of the Thai capitol young girls were being sold on table tops at busy intersections to the highest bidders and that was in 2003!

This writer has been traveling to Asia annually since 1997. During a recent visit to Manila a ‘friend of the family’ treated me to dinner one night at a popular steak house. As we were leaving the San Fernando Steak House (real name withheld) he insisted that I sample some live entertainment. Having an idea what he had in mind I tried to beg out insisted on spending the evening either at home or taking in a movie at the Megamall Shopping Center. He was adamant and insisted that I come with him. I again tried to suggest alternative forms of entertainment. He laughed hysterically and acted like a kid who broke a favorite toy. What could I do? It was night. I was in a foreign city, couldn’t speak Tagalog, and didn’t know one street from the other. I was in no position to argue further.

We arrived at our destination minutes later. He parked in front of The Dynamic (real name withheld) Disco Theater. This was one of those night clubs where patrons do everything but dance. As I left the car I couldn’t help notice the small parking lot teaming with luxury vehicles of every description. Well armed guards in formal white barong tagalog (the official formal attire of Philippine men) frisked us with hand held metal detectors before letting us proceed further. Satisfied that we were unarmed and not police officers, they escorted us inside. The place was huge and packed with patrons. Seconds later we were greeted by an attractive woman wearing a brown waitress uniform. She escorted us to our table near the runway. I was shocked! I didn’t know what to say! Taking our seats glancing towards the runway there was a procession of at least 500 of some of the most beautiful girls on earth! “Wow!” I said thought, “I have died and went to Heaven.”

Leading from the stage was a runway that ran up center aisle that formed a ‘T’ in the middle of the huge auditorium. Walking along the runway were gorgeous Asian women! They were clad in the skimpiest of thongs, string bikinis, see-through panties, micro-miniskirts, leather…well…you get the picture. Officially the girls were ‘modeling’ a mere technicality to legally keep the place open. About 15 minutes into the ‘performance’ our waitress returned to our table then politely introduced herself with: “Good evening gentlemen. My name is Mona and I’ll be your hostess for tonight,” focusing her attention towards me she asked, “Sir what kind of woman will you be having tonight-big a–, big t—s, nice…” She offered me a verbal sampling of who was on the ‘menu’ and carried a restaurant request book to take our ‘orders.’ I politely thanked her. In a state of confusion, arousal, and mild shock, I gazed up toward the ‘runway’ parallel with our table. I noticed that many of these young girls appeared to be underage. Some of them were weeping as they paraded themselves before eager patrons. Seeing the underage girls made me sick to my stomach. I fled towards the comfort room with my ‘friend’ laughing his head off.

-To be continued-

“Opportunity may knock once, but temptation
bangs on your front door forever.”

-Christian ‘One Liners’-

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