Manitoba Criminal Justice Association
Crime Prevention Breakfast
Friday, October 29, 2004

The Global Sexual Exploitation Of Children

By Rosalind Prober, President
Beyond Borders Inc.

Not long ago I received a call from a distraught Dad, whose son had been preyed upon by a previously convicted pedophile and child pornographer. The sexual assault charge collapsed as his son was not able to cope with a brutal cross examination on consent. To help ease this family’s pain, I phoned a man named Doug who lives in the same area and had been abused decades before by a pedophile ring. Following years of dysfunction and addiction, Doug has been able to get his life together and now helps others. After meeting with the victim, Doug called me to say all had gone well but the sad news was that they had both been abused by the same pedophile! Canada must do better to combat the worldwide epidemic of child sexual exploitation. We are doing a shabby job of protecting children from molesters, the vast majority of whom never make it in any recidivism statistics because they abuse and re-abuse with impunity.

It seems not so long ago that I was quite a self-satisfied wimpette living an easy affluent life. I had no intention of becoming an activist, certainly not President of a NGO like Beyond Borders which I am proud to say is in Winnipeg, Windsor and now Toronto. Beyond Borders is the Canadian affiliate of ECPAT, www.ecpat.net a world wide organization run out of Bangkok, Thailand fighting child sexual abuse. However, the way Canada deals with its ultra dangerous pedophiles certainly has a way of shocking you out of complacency. I thank the Manitoba Criminal Justice Association for inviting me here today to share the successes of Beyond Borders and discuss what Canada is doing to stop the global sexual exploitation of children.

Every year millions of men and some women leave their country and travel to Third World countries to live a lie. Too lacking in self esteem, too immature, afraid or sexually addicted to have a quality sexual relationship built on equality, trust, and giving and taking, they choose to pay or manipulate the disadvantaged for sexual gratification. Many prey on children. That crime is called child sex tourism. One of the greatest successes of my pre Beyond Borders life is standing up to the Department of Justice in 1996 on the inadequacy of Canada’s legislation Bill C 27 to stop child sex tourism. The “Prober Amendment” as the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights called it, now guarantees the rights of all children, including Canadian children, to seek justice in Canada if sexually abused by a Canadian abroad. I remain stunned that the Department of Justice fought so hard to retain the flawed child sex tourism legislation which unlike laws in the entire world would have failed more children than it helped. Lloyd Axworthy stands out for fighting side by side with me while other self appointed “child activists” in government dithered at best or just didn’t care enough to speak up. Fast forward 9 years and Beyond Borders, co-founded in 1996 with a children’s rights lawyer, Mark Hecht, is a volunteer driven child protection group lead by a dynamic pro bono legal team.

Regarding child sex tourism, a Vancouver man, Donald Bakker, has now been charged with sexual interference and possession of child pornography offences against children in Asia, something that would have been impossible without the Prober Amendment. Counsel for Bakker has stated that he will challenge the constitutionality of Bill C 27 and Beyond Borders will intervene to fight back. Beyond Borders previously intervened in the Supreme Court of Canada to save the child pornography legislation challenged by a now convicted child molester John Robin Sharpe. The travesty of a tax payer funded pedophile - advocate of the sexual abuse of boys and his success in weakening Canada’s child pornography legislation has not been lost on the world community. Combine that with our exceptionally low age of protection - 14, and it is easy to understand the skepticism about Canada. Many wonder how long it will take or if we are even capable of getting justice for children preyed upon by a Canadian sex tourist. The vast majority of developed countries have long ago successfully prosecuted child sex tourists and trust me they don’t go home like Canadian molesters, they go to jail to send a message that child abuse anywhere is not tolerated.

So where are we at today at stopping child sexual exploitation? The self congratulatory rhetoric on child protection continues in the Irwin Cotler era and is, as every Canadian knows, sadly undermined by the reality of what is happening in the justice system. The other day, a step-father who was abusing his step daughter for 5 years got a 9 month jail term. Does that sentence make a strong case for denunciation and deterrence of one of the easiest crimes to commit but one with lifelong ramifications for victims? When the Minister of Justice in Bill C 2 just raised maximum sentencing for this type of crime, does he really believe judges or anyone is paying any attention? When guys like this step-father who has obvious sexual preference for young girls are released and well on their way to grooming or abusing their new girl-friend’s child, this victim will limp her way into the difficult teenage years. This victim will end up being one of the incredible number of sexually interfered with children, whose victimization has cost Canadian society $15 billion since 1998. The new sex offender registry is so narrowly designed that single women with children, who are conned into relationships by pedophiles who want access to their children, will continue to be sitting ducks as the registry is closed to the public. Unlike the UK and elsewhere, police will not be able to share any information on a person’s abuse history with the unsuspecting. That is not crime prevention!

Everyone’s goal should be to hold perpetrators accountable, to protect every child’s right to play safely in the streets and parks, to use the Internet to communicate and learn without being targeted and to allow parents and children not to live in fear of convicted identified pedophiles. The opposite is happening. Child abusers, even full blown dangerous ones with fantasies of child abduction, are released to live among the ultra-vulnerable faster than you can say, as our federal Minister of Justice does, that Canada is a world leader in stopping child sexual exploitation. It is Beyond Borders belief that once one has crossed that barrier into sexual activity with children, a person should have no expectation that the state will not take harsh measures to give children their collective right to just simply live as kids should. Amazingly, children in Canada continue to be victims of sexually motivated murder by convicted sex offenders released on a whim and a prayer, after some “therapist” gambles with children’s lives, crosses his or her fingers and gives a pedophile a “low risk to offend” status.

I am just back from the Toronto Police Sex Crimes Conference where I watched 2 video tapes of Michel Briere who murdered Holly Jones. A wake-up call to internet service providers everywhere was Michel Briere’s admission in tape 2, that he was sexually aroused watching child pornography, and sought out any child walking by his apartment to experience what he was watching online. Tape 1 is a must see for anyone involved with protecting the public from sex offenders, as Briere, Mr. concerned citizen, takes a day off work to help police find Holly’s killer. To continue to believe that child pornographers are not ticking time bombs either already abusing children, or on a downward cycle where their fantasies are no longer satisfied by sexual abuse imagery, you must be ignorant of their manipulative narcissistic savvy to avoid detection, and the power of an out of control sex drive towards children combined with denial. This is like believing that those who love cars, for example, seek out car websites, talk to others about cars, collect and share photos of cars, but will never touch or have any interest in a real car. The ICE units across Canada, modeled after out Manitoba team, don’t have to see the Briere videos because they are already aware of how dangerous pedophiles are. Like all police worldwide, they are watching children grow up online being abused year after year, and they are on a desperate search to find these children to free them from crimes too despicable to even mention here.

There has been some progress. A crack has been recently been made in the internet service communities’ wall of denial that they are capable of shutting down child pornography sites. British Telecom made world news this year doing just that. The internet is the great enabler of sex crimes against children and BT said enough is enough. A committee has now been struck by Child Find Manitoba and our new national coordination centre NCCEC in Ottawa, bringing together stakeholders including ISPs to do even better than the UK ISPs in stopping access to abuse imagery. Several years ago Lianna McDonald, head of Child Find Manitoba, was given the task by our Justice Minister Gord Macintosh to set up a hotline to report online sexual abuse of children. Miraculously she accomplished that goal and more - it is now our national hotline. If anybody can move the ISPs to action it is the Child Find team with Lianna, and I am proud that Beyond Borders was asked by Gord Macintosh to play a small role in cybertip.ca. Beyond Borders now joins Lianna as a member in this new initiative. ISPs know the clock is ticking and the public’s patience is fast evaporating. Canadians now know that child sexual abuse imagery is not a Third World problem and their children are constantly at risk online.

Another good step is the new government Bill C2 on child pornography. Beyond Borders’ lawyer David Matas worked very hard to have the proposed defence of the “public good” replaced with 1. A “legitimate purpose” defence, and 2. A “does not pose an undue risk of harm to children” standard. The civil libertarians are whining but have little credibility in our view after supporting John Robin Sharpe and his collected works called Boyabuse in their battle for Freedom of Expression. In tightening up the child pornography law, to his credit Justice Minister Cotler showed that he can and will ignore the complacent bureaucrats and listen to NGOs which is a very positive step. Because of the internet, child exploiters are constantly one mouse click away from empowerment from the like-minded, and arousal from easily accessible abuse imagery.

Now it is time for Mr.Cotler to walk the talk and live up to the commitments Canada made in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and upgrade 1. The misguided conditional sentencing legislation including conditional discharges, 2. The very tame closed to the public sex offender registry, 3. The barely usable complicated dangerous and long term offender legislation, 4. The anti children pardon and name change rules for pedophiles, 5. The mandatory release and half way house folly, and 6. The allowing of ultra-dangerous Canadian convicted abusers to travel to foreign countries. He can name that legislation after Karla Homolka, who will leave Canada for more fertile ground on July 5, 2005 when she is released - sadly Leslie Mahaffy’s birthday.

To the great disappointment of all law enforcement, and no doubt our provincial Justice Minister, Bill C2 has a flaw which sends a message of carry on business as usual to those with a sexual interest in teenagers, by leaving the age of protection at 14. You can not prevent crime or protect children with a vague arbitrary law, forcing police and judges on a case to case basis to infer what is exploitive sexual activity with kids 14 to 18 and what is not. John Robin Sharpe loves this proposed law and on his website gives it a pedophile thumbs up for the very same reason Beyond Borders opposes it. It does not criminalize all adult sex with teens and it will permit aggressive punishing cross examination of victims on consent in our “win at all costs” adversarial system. The result will be victories for pedophiles in precedent setting cases. Who would believe in refusing to relent and raise the age of protection to 16, that the Department of Justice would dream up a law where no one will have any clue that they are breaking it until they are arrested. I would believe it because I have dealt with them before and there has been no regime change in Ottawa on this issue for years.

On the issue of consent if you think I am exaggerating, in a recent case in Saskatchewan, a runaway, picked up and made drunk by three twenty year olds whom the judge constantly referred to as “the boys”, became a consenting sexual aggressor. She was 12. Beyond Borders reported that judge to the Judicial Council. To believe that raising the age of protection to 16 and putting in a gap of 5 years to protect consenting teens from prosecution, is going to result in arrests for peer to peer sexual activity, the major fear of raising the age, is to believe that the courts in the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and all over the developed world where the age is 16, are full of criminally charged sexually active teens, which is laughable. C2, in our view, also allows loopholes for cultural and religious excuses for sex with children.

In that regard, on February 18, 2005, Beyond Borders, Child Find, UNIFEM, the Soroptimists and the Winnipeg and Manitoba Councils of Women have teamed up to bring a child bride to Winnipeg for an education luncheon at the Fort Garry Hotel. The marrying of young teenagers usually for sex and breeding by much older often multi-married men is now being recognized as a human rights violation as well as a sexual abuse crime. Our guest will tell her story of how at 15 her nightmare began as a child bride. So where did this happen - Afghanistan, Romania, Pakistan? No – it happened right under our noses in the polygamist cult located in Bountiful, British Columbia. A panel will follow to discuss if Bill C2 and leaving the age of protection at 14, will help these girls or continue to be a barrier to preventing this crime.

In closing, the luncheon will be a proud moment for me as I am the new kid on the block. These longstanding hardworking groups like Child Find, and activists like Mary Scott and Muriel Smith just to name two, mentored me and gave me the courage to set a new course in my life and not look back. Being made a part of the worldwide ECPAT family was the icing on the cake. What I learned from these pioneers is that working to prevent abuse and crime gives your life meaning and purpose. No doubt everyone in the room at this crime prevention breakfast knows that very well already. Thank you. Miigwetch. Bonjour.

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