Brazil Rides Crusade against Child Prostitution
Brazil is about to wage an all-out war against sexual exploitation of children, a crime that has hit unprecedented highs with both the development of sexual tourism and the impunity that some well-connected customers have, official sources told Caribbean News Digital.
The official campaign will crank up during the World Tourism Forum to be held in Salvador de Bahia on December 2.
The action encompasses four different areas: child prostitution, online pornography, trafficking of children and adolescents, and sexual tourism, said Elizabeth Leitao, senior advisor to the Human Rights Department and coordinator of the Commission for the Struggle against Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents.
Last week, Brazilian law enforcement officers thwarted a Germany-based gang of flesh smugglers that used to offer European tourists the possibility of having sex with Brazilian teenagers and used to send women to Europe to become prostitutes in the Old World.
The action is construed here as the largest raid ever conducted by federal cops against prostitution in the country, Police Commissioner Fernando Francischini said.
The arrests took place during the official visit to Brazil of a UN envoy who had voiced concern over official leniency toward sexual crimes against teenagers and children in a region in which sexual tourism abounds.
The Brazilian Human Rights Department (BHRD) is now carrying out an all-embracing probe of sexual exploitation of minors in 450 of the country’s 1,500 municipalities. Law enforcement officers have identified over “a thousand places where children are forced into prostitution,” Elizabeth Leitao of the BHRD indicated.
The grim picture of sexual exploitation of children in Brazil was laid bare last month after a yacht with a “pleasure cruise” onboard ran aground in an Amazonian river. The human cargo of thirteen people, including top political figures, impresarios, girls, and a five minors, died in the accident.
