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The handsome young waiter's eyes followed Sarah as she walked across the restaurant, and she felt her heart beating faster as he leaned over to place a napkin in her lap. "At 54, I was unused to the attention of young men, especially a handsome one in his 20s," she says. "Our eyes connected as I told myself not to be silly - he couldn't possibly be interested in me. But I was wrong." Sarah Jarvis is 59 and has four grown-up children and four grandchildren. Attractive, slim and smartly dressed, she has been divorced from her lawyer husband for...

Countries debating whether or not to legalize prostitution could learn from what occurred in the Australian state of Victoria. The state government legalized prostitution in 1984 and since then, the sex industry has flourished. With over 20 years of experience, many of the promised benefits of legalizing prostitution have not, however, materialized, according to a book published earlier this year. A detailed examination of the situation in Victoria was authored by self-declared “feminist activist” Mary Lucille Sullivan, in her book “Making Sex Work: A Failed Experiment With Legalised Prostitution,” (Spinifex Press). “Victoria’s legalized prostitution system assists in maintaining male dominance,...

PHILADELPHIA — Seven years ago, Russian courts convicted a wealthy American motel owner of molesting children, sent him to prison, then expelled him from the country. The experience did little to keep Anthony "Mark" Bianchi stateside. Over the next few years, U.S. officials allege, he traveled to Moldova, Romania, Cambodia and Cuba to recruit destitute boys for sexual trysts. Bianchi, 44, of North Wildwood, N.J., faces trial beginning Monday under a controversial federal law aimed at thwarting "sex tourism." He is accused in this country of committing crimes -- assaulting nearly a dozen minors -- on foreign soil. More than...

Page 1 EQUALITY NOW New York: 250 West 57 Street, #1527, New York, NY 10107, USA ▪ Tel:+1 212-586-0906 • Fax:+1 212-586-1611 • Email: info@equalitynow.org London: 6 Buckingham Street, London WC2N 6BU, UK • Phone:+44 (0) 20-7839-5456 • Fax:+44 (0) 20-7839-4012 • Email: ukinfo@equalitynow.org Nairobi: PO Box 2018 KNH 00202, Nairobi, Kenya • Tel: +254 20-2719-832 • Fax: +254 20-2719-868 • Email: equalitynow@kenyaweb.com Sex Tourism: Addressing the Demand for Trafficking Testimony by Jessica Neuwirth, President of Equality Now Thank you for this opportunity to testify before you, and thank you for your interest in and support for efforts to...

(CBS/AP) PHILADELPHIA -- Seven years ago, Russian courts convicted a wealthy American motel owner of molesting children and sent him to prison, but later decided to just expel him. The experience did little to keep Anthony "Mark" Bianchi stateside. Over the next few years, he traveled to Moldova, Romania, Cambodia and Cuba -- trips all designed, U.S. officials say, to recruit destitute boys for sexual trysts. Bianchi, 44, of North Wildwood, N.J., is scheduled to go on trial Monday on charges he assaulted nearly a dozen minors on foreign soil. And this time -- under a largely untested 2003 law...

T.O. announces campaign to attract gay tourists toronto.ctv.ca Tourism Toronto said Friday that it plans to launch an advertising campaign aimed at making the city a top destination for gay travellers from the U.S. The campaign will focus on four major cities - New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It will include ads in gay restaurants, bars and local publications, as well as event sponsorships and other promotional activities. "Toronto has things to offer all year round--we've got a number of festivals outside of Pride that we can market," said Bruce MacDonald of the Canadian Gay & Lesbian...

Police say she passed out cards that offered the teen girls for sex A 16-year-old girl endured being sold into prostitution by her mother but finally went to Houston police after seeing her younger sister also forced to perform sex acts, investigators said Wednesday. The teenager had complied with her mother — who even distributed business cards offering her daughters for sex — but feared that her 14-year-old sister would be hurt, officers said. Nelsi Yolanda Latuda and her boyfriend, Pedro Espinoza-Escama, both of the 5500 block of Antoine, are charged with two counts each of compelling prostitution of a...

June 7, 2007ICE Operation Predator arrests of child exploiters top 10,000In four years, initiative has removed more than 5,500 child exploiters from the U.S. WASHINGTON - Just four years after the Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Predator, an initiative aimed at those who sexually exploit children, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today that its arrests had topped 10,000. "Operation Predator is a great example of how our transnational partnerships and wide-ranging legal authorities can work to protect children," said Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for ICE. "In the course of this highly successful...

Indian media have been publishing exposés documenting the foul behavior of Gulf Arabs in the southern Indian town of Hyderabad “Fly-by-night bridegrooms,” by R Akhileshwari in the Deccan Herald and “One minor girl, many Arabs,” by Mohammed Wajihuddin in the Times of India are two important examples. Wajihuddin sets the stage: They are old predators with new vigour. Often bearded, invariably in flowing robes and expensive turbans. The rich, middle-aged Arabs increasingly stalk the deprived streets of Hyderabad like medieval monarchs would stalk their harems in days that we wrongly think are history. These Viagra-enabled Arabs are perpetrating a blatant...

A 87-year-old Californian man has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for attempting to travel to the Philippines to have sex with two little girls. Wheelchair-bound John Seljan admitted to police he had been visiting young girls in the Philippines for the last 20 years. The judge said his term in prison was "tantamount to a life sentence". He is the first person convicted at trial under the Protect Act, aimed at curbing sex tourism. The former country singer and businessman was caught at Los Angeles international airport in 2003, where agents found child pornography, sex aids, sexually explicit...

HR4477 "SEX TOURISM PROHIBITION IMPROVEMENTS ACT of 2002" For=418 Against=8 Not Voting=8 The Eight Against: Frank, Democrat- MA Hastings, Democrat - FL Nadler, Democrat - NY Olver Democrat - MA Paul, Republican - TX Rangel, Democrat - NY Scott, Democrat - VA Watt, Democrat - NC HR4477 "SEX TOURISM PROHIBITION IMPROVEMENTS ACT" 107th Congress June 26, 2002 An Act to amend title 18, United States Code, with respect to crimes involving the transportation of persons and sex tourism. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT...

ANGEL-faced orphans Cham-ilka and Gemhani lost their mum and their home to the tsunami but now face a greater horror—being sold to sex beasts by their grandad. The terrified sisters survived the killer wave after it struck the village of Hikkaduwa in Sri Lanka. But after their dad lost his mind with grief and fled the country, they were left in the clutches of evil Aruma Somadasa. Now he wants to sell them to paedophiles for £5,000 each. "You can take both girls, take them abroad if you want, or take just one," he said. "You can do what you...

A BOY whose mother died in the tsunami is feared to have been kidnapped from a Thai hospital by a pedophile. Kristian Walker, 12, from Stockholm, was said to have been led away by a dark-haired stranger. Swedish police sent seven officers to Thailand to investigate. The boy's father, Dan Walker said he was gravely concerned for his son. He said that Kristian and two of his other children went on holiday to the Thai resort of Khao Lak with his mother -- Mr Walker's ex-wife -- and her boyfriend. When the tsunami struck their hotel, Mr Walker's ex-wife was...

The Children, the Desperate, the Helpless, the Homeless Fall Victim to the Heartless Hong Kong: loud, decadent, exotic, dazzling day and night with flashing, brilliant, multicolored lights. Quite a contrast from Paris -- the serene, romantic city of warmth, hope and dreams that I had just left. Hong Kong's streets were lined with makeshift shelters used to sell meager goods by day, and as shelters by night for some of the million Chinese who had escaped the tyranny of the Communist regime on the mainland. The ex-pat community and the elite Hong Kong Chinese, on the other hand, had built...

PUERTO PLATA, Dominican Republic -- It's being called Canada's Thailand. A perverts' paradise where children as young as 12 are being sold into prostitution -- usually by a family member looking to cash in on the pink-tanned turistas and their appetite for sun, sand and sex. Many of the children in the sex trade here are used and abused by wealthy locals, while a growing number serve as sex slaves for even wealthier foreigners. They are sex tourists who spend more on a trip to the Caribbean than most Dominicans make in a year. Among them, Canadians. The Dominican Republic...

A judge has dismissed charges against two New York men accused by state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer of promoting prostitution through "sex tourism" in Asia. Douglas Allen, 59, and Norman Barabash, 58, were indicted last year on felony and misdemeanor counts of promoting prostitution in the operation of Big Apple Oriental Tours. Spitzer accused them of using their tour business -- run from Allen's Poughkeepsie home and Barabash's Queens home -- to solicit customers for prostitution rings operating in the Philippines and Thailand. Dutchess County Court Judge Gerald Hayes dismissed the charges, finding prosecutors failed to provide sufficient evidence that...

TAMPA, Fla. -- President Bush on Friday accused Fidel Castro of exploiting Cuba's children by encouraging a sex-tourism industry designed to draw cash to the impoverished nation, comments certain to resonate with Cuban-American voters in the swing state of Florida. "The regime in Havana, already one of the worst violators of human rights in the world, is adding to its crimes. The dictator welcomes sex tourism," Bush said at a conference on "human trafficking" - forced labor, sex and military service. Bush's rival, John Kerry, agreed with the president and the Democratic campaign said human trafficking demands a coordinated international...

Federal prosecutors have unsealed an indictment charging multimillionaire San Francisco financier Robert F. White with traveling to Thailand and Mexico to molest and exploit children. The grand jury indictment, reported by The Chronicle in April, accuses the 68-year-old White of conspiring to violate the so-called child sex tourism law. That law prohibits traveling from the United States to other countries to have sex with minors, even if the sexual activity is legal where it took place. He also is charged with conspiring to produce child pornography.

HNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia, whose postwar opening for tourism went as far as to include child prostitution, has begun a campaign against suspected pedophiles, increasingly deporting them for trial in their home countries. Private child protection groups, foreign governments and police forces in Cambodia are working together on the problem. Free city guidebooks and maps now carrying ads warning in red type, "Sex with children is a crime." "It was total impunity before in Cambodia," Rodney Hatfield, a representative for Unicef, which has started its own ad campaign. "Now it is getting harder and harder" for adults to prey...

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden's Olympic Committee says it will not forbid its athletes from visiting brothels during the 2004 Athens Olympics, saying it trusts its representatives to save their best performances for the Games. "We do not need to interfere in the private lives of our athletes or threaten them," said Swedish Olympic Committee spokesman Bjorn Folin on Friday. He would not comment on the decision by the Danish Olympic Committee to send home any athletes caught with their pants down in Athens. "I didn't know they had a problem. We have never had any problems. Our athletes will stay...

Two flights are due into Montego Bay Airport, one from Toronto, the other from London. Clinton waits on the beach for the new arrivals, hoping that one of them will bring him good fortune. "I look for the milk bottles," he says, explaining how ultra-white skin is a giveaway, "the ones who've just arrived. Milk bottles that need filling ..." Negril, with its 11-kilometre stretch of pristine sand and turquoise sea, attracts the majority of Jamaica's 1.3 million tourists every year, primarily from the United States, Canada and Europe. It is known as a "swinging" resort. Many white Western women...