[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

Women, Child Abuse in Burma




Women, Child Abuse in Burma - 3/22/94

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government is taking a tougher stance
against sexual abuse of women and children around the world, the
State Department's top human rights official said Tuesday. Members
of Congress and rights activists called for stronger U.S. laws as
well.
	Assistant Secretary John Shattuck cited the reported movement of
thousands of women from Burma to brothels in Thailand and said the
Thai government is not doing enough to curb the practice and
protect the women.
	Shattuck, who oversees the department's annual country reports
on human rights, said the problem of sexual exploitation of women
and male and female children also plagues India, Bangladesh, the
Philippines and several other countries.
	Other witnesses at a House subcommittee hearing cited problems
in Taiwan, Sri Lanka, the Dominican Republic and Brazil, and said
it is a human rights scar on prosperous countries that supply the
customers -- including the United States, European countries and
Japan.
	Witnesses said there were no reliable overall estimates, but
they tallied 800,000 young people involved in prostitution in
Thailand, 400,000 in India, 70,000 in Taiwan, 40,000 in the
Philippines, 30,000 in Sri Lanka and 25,000 in Brazil's Amazon
mining camps.
	``The Clinton administration is initiating several important
actions to combat the problem worldwide,'' Shattuck said.
	These include instructions to embassies that visas be denied to
government officials or police involved in the trafficking of women
and children, inclusion of women's rights as part of U.S. military
training for foreign soldiers and police, and increased diplomatic
efforts to get other countries to attack the trafficking problem.
	Shattuck said in too many countries, a crackdown on prostitution
means arrest of the women and children involved, which he said
often leads to further abuse.
	``Fear of arrest is one of the factors that chains women to the
brothels,'' he said.
	Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., who chaired the hearing of the House
Foreign Affairs human rights subcommittee, said, ``In the era of
the material world, a young innocent is the ultimate disposable
good.''
	Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, D-Mass., testifying before the
committee, pushed legislation that would make it a felony to
produce or traffic in child pornography anywhere in the world if it
is intended for use in the United States.
	Kennedy's bill would also make it illegal for Americans to
travel abroad with the intent of committing sexual acts with minors
that would be illegal in the United States.
	Dorothy Thomas, director of Human Rights Watch's Women's Rights
Project, which chronicled the Burma-Thai sex trade, told the
subcommittee that Burmese girls are turned over to sex traffickers
at the Thai border for a few hundred dollars each. They go to
brothels that are sometimes hidden underground and protected by
electrified barbed wire and armed guards, she said.
	Thomas said the girls, many of whom contract the AIDS virus,
serve up to 15 clients a day ``with virtually no choice about whom
to accept or what type of sex will occur.''