Police and Tourism Sector Partnership to Protect Children from Sexual Exploitation Vietnam and Australia Federal Agent Paula Hudson Australian Federal Police Liaison Officer Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
International Law Enforcement Community s Role in Combating Child Sex Exploitation To work together in partnership to detect, prevent, disrupt, investigate and prosecute: People who travel overseas and commit sexual and/or abuse offences against children; and People who use the Internet to facilitate the sexual exploitation and/or abuse of children overseas.
The Australian Law The Australian Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995 Contains 11 Child Sex Tourism offences 3 Overseas Child Pornography offences Extended geographical jurisdiction for child sex offences committed by Australians in any country of the world Up to 25 years imprisonment in Australia
Australian National Child Offender System The Australian National Child Offender System was launched in 2004 NCOS; NCOS is applied to Australia s convicted child sex offenders who have been placed on the National Register by the courts; All convicted Australian child sex offenders are recorded on NCOS 16,100 people currently on the register; Must notify of international (and domestic) travel plans;
Does not prevent travel out of Australia Does not necessitate Denial of entry
19 Countries with Sex Offender Registration Systems
Top 10 Destination Countries Rank Country Jan - Mar 2013 April - Jun 2013 Jul - Sep 2013 Oct - Dec 2013 Jan - Mar 2014 Apr - Jun 2014 Jul - Sep 2014 Oct - Dec 2014 Total 1 Indonesia 55 108 62 68 293 2 New Zealand 34 51 37 39 161 3 Thailand 29 58 31 30 148 4 Singapore 16 65 19 19 119 5 Malaysia 9 48 16 24 97 6 Philippines 23 24 19 24 90 7 Vietnam 2 4 9 16 9 14 7 7 68 8 New Caledonia/ Vanuatu 11 31 11 53 9 Fiji 11 23 14 48 10 Papua New Guinea 16 17 33
Monitor to Prevent and Disrupt In March 2013, the AFP and Vietnam Ministry of Public Security establish an agreement to monitor, prevent and disrupt travelling child sex offenders who travel to Vietnam. The strategy importantly involves proactive engagement of Vietnam s tourism and hotel industry and NGOs we recognize law enforcement cannot do this alone.
Key aims of the strategy Drive stakeholder engagement between police, government and the private industry sector; Gather valuable data on travelling child sex offender trends and patterns within Vietnam and their use of tourism facilities and services, their preferred district/province, hotel type, quality/star rating, stay duration, return travel and onward destination to enable greater targeted prevention and disruption where needed; and Raise awareness within Vietnamese amongst Police, Immigration and the Tourism Industry in this crime type - specifically the benefits of prevention/disruption and what important role they play.
Strategy in Action Tourism Industry - Hotel Staff Tour Agency NGO s Australian Customs and Immigration Vietnam Customs and Immigration AFP/MPS Regional partners
NCOS Offender Stay Locations 27% Hotels Private Residence 73%
RSO Stay Locations by District/Province 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Hotels by District Private residence 1 0
Hotel Demographics
The modal figure for RSO duration of stay is 27.3 days. 37% are return/repeat travellers to Vietnam
Offender destination after Vietnam 12 10 8 6 4 2 0
Key Findings/Trends = Vulnerability Long Stay Return traveller Low star/quality hotel Non-tourist/business traveller locations Land Border crossings
Our Challenges Together Continue to make the environment difficult for travelling child sex offenders to operate in the vulnerable SEA Region; Recognize this data shows that travelling child sex offenders will adapt to our joint protection and prevention measures within their use of the tourism industry; How? Determine how we can increase engagement with the lower quality tourism establishments in non-traditional tourist or business traveler locations these are our vulnerable areas; Undertake and expand our joint efforts in training, education and prevention.
Federal Agent Paula Hudson paula.hudson@afp.gov.au