PRESS CONFERENCE ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND SEX TOURISM
Press Briefing |
PRESS CONFERENCE ON human TRAFFICKING and sex tourism
(Issued on 21 October 2004.)
The world should stop denying the problem of child sex trafficking, which was a form of slavery, musician Ricky Martin said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon sponsored by the Permanent Mission of the United States. “I want to see the abolition of this slavery”, Mr. Martin said. “In order for that to happen, I need leaders. I need governments to be a part of this.”
Mr. Martin had met with ambassadors and diplomats earlier in the day to ask them to join in that struggle, said John Miller, Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons of the United States Department of State, who also addressed journalists at the press conference. “He said, ‘I am willing to be the voice, but I need your help’”, Mr. Miller noted, thanking Mr. Martin for his efforts.
Mr. Miller, who described his work at the State Department as focusing on international slavery, said that child sex tourism was one of the driving forces behind child prostitution. Everyone had a role to play in addressing that problem, including destination countries such as Cambodia and Costa Rica, as well as the countries where sex tourists came from, including the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, United States and Australia.
The United States had enacted new legislation to prosecute sex offenders, including those involved in sex tourism, and was working in cooperation with other governments to arrest people for such crimes, said Michael Garcia, Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, United States Department of Homeland Security.
Asked why the United States and Somalia were the only two countries that had not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Mr. Miller replied that he did not know all the issues behind that, but said that the United States had signed the protocol on slavery [The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, which was part of the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organised Crime], which was expected to be ratified by the Senate this fall.
He added that the issue of child sex trafficking was a non-partisan, non-political issue that had drawn together a broad coalition, including Democrats and Republicans, evangelical Christians and feminists.
Mr. Martin, when asked by a journalist about child labour, noted that his own singing career began at age nine. “But it was my choice”, he said, adding that it was about music, dancing and joy. Children forced into slavery was another matter altogether. They were forced into prostitution and the pornography industry by criminals who often lured them with promises of a better life, he said.
Mr. Martin added that he was here not for any political purpose, but “to talk on behalf of the children”.
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