Cambodia's government must protect victims of sexual violence as reports of rape increase Amnesty International's report includes 30 interviews with Cambodian women and girls
© AP/PA Photo/Heng Sinith
8 March 2010
Survivors of rape in Cambodia face limited access to justice, medical services and counselling, Amnesty International said in a report issued on Monday, as rapes of women and girls appear to be increasing,
Breaking the silence: Sexual violence in Cambodia, issued to mark International Women's Day, exposes how corruption and discrimination within the police and courts prevent survivors of rape from receiving justice and required assistance, while most perpetrators go unpunished.
"Dozens of survivors told us that they face extortion, ignorance and disbelief from officials whose job it should be to assist them and protect their rights," said Donna Guest, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Deputy Director. "For too many survivors of rape, the pursuit of justice and medical support adds further distress to the initial abuse."
Amnesty International researchers found sex workers and women living in poverty faced serious obstacles in seeking justice and medical services. They were unable to pay bribes which were often required of them from the police and others, and could not afford legal or medical services.
The report includes 30 interviews with women and girls aged between 10 and 40. The family of a 19 year-old girl with a learning disability explained how police officers ignored their complaint when Mony was raped in late 2009.
"The police only work if you have money, if you can pay. With around 100,000 riels [approx US$25] perhaps we could have secured an arrest, but we don't have that," said her father.
He said that Mony lived in constant fear of the perpetrator, who remained at large. The family also struggled to afford the medicine she needed, and described transportation costs to court and police as very difficult.
Cambodian society, like many around the world, exhibits deeply engrained gender discrimination that stigmatizes survivors of sexual assaults, while perpetrators, who mostly remain at large, face limited, if any, sanction.
"With the lack of social support towards victims, it is crucial that the government breaks the silence and publicly condemns sexual violence, to show that it will not tolerate such serious crimes and to acknowledge the pain of the survivors," said Donna Guest.
With a new Penal Code entering into force in late 2010, Amnesty International has called on the Cambodian government to firmly address inadequate law enforcement, extra-judicial settlements, weak prosecution and widespread corruption in cases of suspected sexual violence.
Amnesty International has also urged the government to train and equip the police, utilise female police officers, and allocate necessary budgets so that they can investigate allegations of crimes promptly, professionally and sensitively.
Data provided by police and NGOs indicates that incidents of rape are increasing in Cambodia, but the extent of the increase is hidden by a lack of monitoring and limited reporting and coordination of statistics.
Authorities should accurately obtain such information and use it to inform policy and plans of action.
"Cambodia has made important inroads into tackling gender-discrimination, with a focus on domestic violence and human trafficking," Donna Guest said. "It is time the government incorporated sexual violence against women into these categories to address its failure to meet the human rights obligations under the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women."
The 60-page report presents extensive research and recommendations to reverse increasing sexual violence against women. The analysis was released as part of Amnesty International's global campaign to Stop Violence against Women.
Read more:
Rape victims worldwide denied justice and dignity (News, 8 March 2010)
Cambodia: Breaking the silence: Sexual violence in Cambodia
© AP/PA Photo/Heng Sinith
8 March 2010
Survivors of rape in Cambodia face limited access to justice, medical services and counselling, Amnesty International said in a report issued on Monday, as rapes of women and girls appear to be increasing,
Breaking the silence: Sexual violence in Cambodia, issued to mark International Women's Day, exposes how corruption and discrimination within the police and courts prevent survivors of rape from receiving justice and required assistance, while most perpetrators go unpunished.
"Dozens of survivors told us that they face extortion, ignorance and disbelief from officials whose job it should be to assist them and protect their rights," said Donna Guest, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Deputy Director. "For too many survivors of rape, the pursuit of justice and medical support adds further distress to the initial abuse."
Amnesty International researchers found sex workers and women living in poverty faced serious obstacles in seeking justice and medical services. They were unable to pay bribes which were often required of them from the police and others, and could not afford legal or medical services.
The report includes 30 interviews with women and girls aged between 10 and 40. The family of a 19 year-old girl with a learning disability explained how police officers ignored their complaint when Mony was raped in late 2009.
"The police only work if you have money, if you can pay. With around 100,000 riels [approx US$25] perhaps we could have secured an arrest, but we don't have that," said her father.
He said that Mony lived in constant fear of the perpetrator, who remained at large. The family also struggled to afford the medicine she needed, and described transportation costs to court and police as very difficult.
Cambodian society, like many around the world, exhibits deeply engrained gender discrimination that stigmatizes survivors of sexual assaults, while perpetrators, who mostly remain at large, face limited, if any, sanction.
"With the lack of social support towards victims, it is crucial that the government breaks the silence and publicly condemns sexual violence, to show that it will not tolerate such serious crimes and to acknowledge the pain of the survivors," said Donna Guest.
With a new Penal Code entering into force in late 2010, Amnesty International has called on the Cambodian government to firmly address inadequate law enforcement, extra-judicial settlements, weak prosecution and widespread corruption in cases of suspected sexual violence.
Amnesty International has also urged the government to train and equip the police, utilise female police officers, and allocate necessary budgets so that they can investigate allegations of crimes promptly, professionally and sensitively.
Data provided by police and NGOs indicates that incidents of rape are increasing in Cambodia, but the extent of the increase is hidden by a lack of monitoring and limited reporting and coordination of statistics.
Authorities should accurately obtain such information and use it to inform policy and plans of action.
"Cambodia has made important inroads into tackling gender-discrimination, with a focus on domestic violence and human trafficking," Donna Guest said. "It is time the government incorporated sexual violence against women into these categories to address its failure to meet the human rights obligations under the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women."
The 60-page report presents extensive research and recommendations to reverse increasing sexual violence against women. The analysis was released as part of Amnesty International's global campaign to Stop Violence against Women.
Read more:
Rape victims worldwide denied justice and dignity (News, 8 March 2010)
Cambodia: Breaking the silence: Sexual violence in Cambodia
Do not look for Minors/children for Sex - You will be Jailed !
30yrs - life in America
Alleged Sex Tourist Returns to Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES -- A man who taught English in Cambodia and who is accused of traveling outside the United States to have sex with children arrived back in the United States Monday in FBI custody.
Michael James Dodd, 59, was brought back to the United States by members of the FBI's Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement (S.A.F.E.) Team, a multi-agency task-force dedicated to crimes against children.
The FBI first began investigating Dodd when members of the S.A.F.E. Team traveled to Cambodia in 2008 to meet with law enforcement officials there.
According to a criminal complaint filed against Dodd in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in January, Dodd taught English in Cambodia for students between the ages of 13 and 45 years old.
Dodd was arrested by the Cambodian National Police in October 2008 for an illegal sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl.
According to the complaint, Dodd admitted to an FBI agent during an interview that he traveled to Cambodia because he wasn't allowed to teach school in most places due to a previous sex offense.
Dodd also admitted, the claim states, to having sexual relations with a female minor and to paying the victim's family $50 every two weeks so he could visit with, and eventually marry, the girl.
He also admitted he paid other children to have sex with him in the area where he lived in Cambodia.
Dodd was convicted in a Cambodian court of sexually abusing the girl, and was sentenced to ten years in prison.
Previously, Dodd was arrested in 2001 in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (Saipan) for inappropriately touching thirteen underage female students at an elementary school where he worked.
He served time in prison, and was then put on probation for 15 years and ordered to pay fines and register as a sex offender.
Dodd will have an initial court appearance in Los Angeles on February 23rd.
If convicted of foreign travel to have sex with a child, he faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. Copyright © 2010, KTLA-TV, Los Angeles
Video link or http://www.fox5sandiego.com/news/ktla-cambodia-molester,0,7751693.story
Michael James Dodd, 59, was brought back to the United States by members of the FBI's Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement (S.A.F.E.) Team, a multi-agency task-force dedicated to crimes against children.
The FBI first began investigating Dodd when members of the S.A.F.E. Team traveled to Cambodia in 2008 to meet with law enforcement officials there.
According to a criminal complaint filed against Dodd in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in January, Dodd taught English in Cambodia for students between the ages of 13 and 45 years old.
Dodd was arrested by the Cambodian National Police in October 2008 for an illegal sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl.
According to the complaint, Dodd admitted to an FBI agent during an interview that he traveled to Cambodia because he wasn't allowed to teach school in most places due to a previous sex offense.
Dodd also admitted, the claim states, to having sexual relations with a female minor and to paying the victim's family $50 every two weeks so he could visit with, and eventually marry, the girl.
He also admitted he paid other children to have sex with him in the area where he lived in Cambodia.
Dodd was convicted in a Cambodian court of sexually abusing the girl, and was sentenced to ten years in prison.
Previously, Dodd was arrested in 2001 in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (Saipan) for inappropriately touching thirteen underage female students at an elementary school where he worked.
He served time in prison, and was then put on probation for 15 years and ordered to pay fines and register as a sex offender.
Dodd will have an initial court appearance in Los Angeles on February 23rd.
If convicted of foreign travel to have sex with a child, he faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. Copyright © 2010, KTLA-TV, Los Angeles
Video link or http://www.fox5sandiego.com/news/ktla-cambodia-molester,0,7751693.story
An Arizona man nicknamed "the Pied Piper of Pedophiles" is one of the three Americans arrested for allegedly traveling to Cambodia to molest children.
Retired engineer Jack Louis Sporich, 74, was classified as one of California's most dangerous sex offenders in the 1990s, when he spent nine years in prison for molesting more than 500 young boys since the 1960s, MyFOXPhoenix reported.
He was released from a state mental hospital in 2004 after jurors couldn't agree on whether he was at risk of committing more sex crimes against children.
After he left prison, he moved into a luxury condo in Sedona, Ariz. Authorities say he also built a mansion in Cambodia, where he was charged with indecent acts against minors in a case involving four boys there ages 9 to 13, according to MyFOXPhoenix.
Sporich reportedly would lure boys in Cambodia with toys, candy and $1 bills he dropped on the streets as he rode through town on his motorcycle, the station reported.
Sporich and two other convicted sex offenders arrived in Los Angeles on Monday after they were caught in a sting dubbed "Operation Twisted Traveler," a crackdown on Americans who go overseas to have sex with children.
He was released from a state mental hospital in 2004 after jurors couldn't agree on whether he was at risk of committing more sex crimes against children.
After he left prison, he moved into a luxury condo in Sedona, Ariz. Authorities say he also built a mansion in Cambodia, where he was charged with indecent acts against minors in a case involving four boys there ages 9 to 13, according to MyFOXPhoenix.
Sporich reportedly would lure boys in Cambodia with toys, candy and $1 bills he dropped on the streets as he rode through town on his motorcycle, the station reported.
Sporich and two other convicted sex offenders arrived in Los Angeles on Monday after they were caught in a sting dubbed "Operation Twisted Traveler," a crackdown on Americans who go overseas to have sex with children.
LOS ANGELES — Three Americans "tourists" are on their way home from Cambodia Monday after being arrested in an ongoing federal sex tourism investigation.
The arrests are part of “Operation Twisted Traveler,” an effort by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify and prosecute American sex tourists in Cambodia.
The suspects — Jack Sporich, 74, Erik Peeters, 41, and Ronald "John" Boyajian, 59 — are all convicted child sex offenders who have served time in U.S. prisons.
After their release, investigators say, the three headed to the most destitute neighborhoods in Cambodia, itself one of the poorest nations in Southeast Asia, where it is believed they once again sexually assaulted young boys and girls.
FOX News was given exclusive access to the suspects and video of their arrest.
Click here to see video.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for ICE John Morton stressed that Operation Twisted Traveler is still very much ongoing.
var adsonar_placementId="1425767",adsonar_pid="144757",adsonar_ps="-1",adsonar_zw=224;adsonar_zh=93,adsonar_jv="ads.adsonar.com"; qas_writeAd(); "Boarding a plane to a foreign land is no protection," Morton said. "If you molest children overseas and we find out, we will investigate you and we will seek to bring you back here to face justice. The arm of the law is long, it’s determined, and it’s looking for you."
Peeters bought a 13-year-old Cambodian boy from his parents for $2 and a bag of rice, and raped him five times, a federal affidavit alleges.
Investigators say the 41-year-old from Norwalk, Calif., thought he could get away with his crime by escaping to Cambodia, the capital of the billion-dollar sex tourism trade in Southeast Asia, where he is one of thousands of Western pedophiles who travel there to prey on children.
But local police and U.S. investigators had him under surveillance.
Now, he and two other California pedophiles are returning to Los Angeles on a jet departing from Tokyo.
Another of the men onboard was Jack Sporich, a 74-year-old that police call the ‘Pied Piper of Pedophiles.” He spent nine years in a California prison for molesting as many as 500 boys during camping trips.
After his release from Atascadero State Hospital, where he refused treatment, records show he traveled to Southeast Asia at least eight times, where sources say he rode his motor scooter through the poorest neighborhoods of Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh, dropping a trail of American dollar bills to lure young boys back to his home where they were allegedly sexually assaulted.
The final passenger, 59 year-old Ronald Boyajian, was convicted of 18 counts of sexual intercourse with minors in 1995 in Menlo Park, Calif. He was caught molesting a 10 year-old Vietnamese girl in an area called Kilo 11, a haven of child brothels 11 kilometers outside Phnom Penh.
“Cambodia in particular has been known for some time as a pedophile haven because there’s been a broken justice, no rule of law, and actually no laws on the books that would have been enforceable against these types of activities until recently,” said Jeff Blom, an investigator with International Justice Mission.
“We need to change the fear equation, make pedophiles fear going to jail.”
Cambodian police say other victims were believed to be given $5 or $10 after each sexual act and the children were photographed naked. Mothers of two of the abused boys lived on the street and sold their boys for up to $100 because, they said, “they needed the money.”
Investigators say all three sex offenders lived in or just outside the capital city of Phnom Penh while on their multiple trips to the Asian region in the last few years.
In the U.S. the men face charges under the Protect Act — a 2003 law that provides life terms for child sex offenders with prior convictions, a much longer sentence than offenders would get abroad.
Investigators say the men are part of a thriving billion-dollar sex tourism business. After a crackdown in Thailand on child sex, the industry has moved primarily to Cambodia where pedophiles molest Vietnamese girls and Cambodian boys with little risk of being caught.
ICE hopes the arrests, done in conjunction with federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, Cambodian police and two anti-child trafficking organizations, International Justice Mission and the human rights organization Action Pour Les Enfants, will send a message that police are watching. Since 2003, ICE has arrested 70 international sex offenders under the Child Protect Act.
The suspects — Jack Sporich, 74, Erik Peeters, 41, and Ronald "John" Boyajian, 59 — are all convicted child sex offenders who have served time in U.S. prisons.
After their release, investigators say, the three headed to the most destitute neighborhoods in Cambodia, itself one of the poorest nations in Southeast Asia, where it is believed they once again sexually assaulted young boys and girls.
FOX News was given exclusive access to the suspects and video of their arrest.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for ICE John Morton stressed that Operation Twisted Traveler is still very much ongoing.
var adsonar_placementId="1425767",adsonar_pid="144757",adsonar_ps="-1",adsonar_zw=224;adsonar_zh=93,adsonar_jv="ads.adsonar.com"; qas_writeAd(); "Boarding a plane to a foreign land is no protection," Morton said. "If you molest children overseas and we find out, we will investigate you and we will seek to bring you back here to face justice. The arm of the law is long, it’s determined, and it’s looking for you."
Peeters bought a 13-year-old Cambodian boy from his parents for $2 and a bag of rice, and raped him five times, a federal affidavit alleges.
Investigators say the 41-year-old from Norwalk, Calif., thought he could get away with his crime by escaping to Cambodia, the capital of the billion-dollar sex tourism trade in Southeast Asia, where he is one of thousands of Western pedophiles who travel there to prey on children.
But local police and U.S. investigators had him under surveillance.
Now, he and two other California pedophiles are returning to Los Angeles on a jet departing from Tokyo.
Another of the men onboard was Jack Sporich, a 74-year-old that police call the ‘Pied Piper of Pedophiles.” He spent nine years in a California prison for molesting as many as 500 boys during camping trips.
After his release from Atascadero State Hospital, where he refused treatment, records show he traveled to Southeast Asia at least eight times, where sources say he rode his motor scooter through the poorest neighborhoods of Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh, dropping a trail of American dollar bills to lure young boys back to his home where they were allegedly sexually assaulted.
The final passenger, 59 year-old Ronald Boyajian, was convicted of 18 counts of sexual intercourse with minors in 1995 in Menlo Park, Calif. He was caught molesting a 10 year-old Vietnamese girl in an area called Kilo 11, a haven of child brothels 11 kilometers outside Phnom Penh.
“Cambodia in particular has been known for some time as a pedophile haven because there’s been a broken justice, no rule of law, and actually no laws on the books that would have been enforceable against these types of activities until recently,” said Jeff Blom, an investigator with International Justice Mission.
“We need to change the fear equation, make pedophiles fear going to jail.”
Cambodian police say other victims were believed to be given $5 or $10 after each sexual act and the children were photographed naked. Mothers of two of the abused boys lived on the street and sold their boys for up to $100 because, they said, “they needed the money.”
Investigators say all three sex offenders lived in or just outside the capital city of Phnom Penh while on their multiple trips to the Asian region in the last few years.
In the U.S. the men face charges under the Protect Act — a 2003 law that provides life terms for child sex offenders with prior convictions, a much longer sentence than offenders would get abroad.
Investigators say the men are part of a thriving billion-dollar sex tourism business. After a crackdown in Thailand on child sex, the industry has moved primarily to Cambodia where pedophiles molest Vietnamese girls and Cambodian boys with little risk of being caught.
ICE hopes the arrests, done in conjunction with federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, Cambodian police and two anti-child trafficking organizations, International Justice Mission and the human rights organization Action Pour Les Enfants, will send a message that police are watching. Since 2003, ICE has arrested 70 international sex offenders under the Child Protect Act.