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Huffinton Post, Amazon and other sites seem to promote sex tourism, as defined by proposal

Chinchilla administration moves against sex tourism

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The central government wants to jail anyone who promotes Costa Rica as a sex tourism destination. That is part of a lengthy proposal for a trafficking-in-persons law that Casa Presidencial has kept on ice for more than a year but authorized its publication in the La Gaceta official newspaper Thursday.

The measure also seeks to raise the airport exit tax from $26 to $27 with the extra dollar going to support a new Instituto Nacional contra la Trata de Personas.

In a summary of the law, which is being sent to the Asamblea Nacional, those who drafted the document report that there only were two cases of sexual exploitation and two cases of labor exploitation in the last decade. In all, the authors said, there were 50 related cases in the last decade and at least 14 that involved trafficking in persons.

News files show only three major case. One was in 2003 when police found nine Ch*ldren, two weeks to 20 months old, at a La Uruca home. They were on their way to adoptions in the developed world. The legislation proposed Thursday also covers what it calls irregular adoptions. This year investigators found Asian fishermen working in what they said was servitude on boats in Puntarenas.

There also was a case in MÃ©xico in which two Costa Rica women said they were tricked by promises of good jobs to go there and then they were forced into prostitution.

Since a new immigration law went into effect in 2006 trafficking in persons has been punishable as a crime. The immigration law that went into effect March 1 continues that penalty. But some of those facing that charge have been individuals caught driving a car or microbus filled with willing Nicaraguan illegal immigrants.

The summary of the proposed legislation says that the real statistics of human trafficking are much higher and hidden.

The proposal also would provide temporary residency and other benefits to those considered victims of trafficking organizations. Some 20 percent of the proposed institute's budget is allocated as a fund for victims. The protection goes so far as to forbid disclosure of complainants' names or to facilitate interviews with the news media. In court cases, trafficking complainants would testify in private. If they are under age, even the suspects would be barred from the testimony, under terms of the proposal.

The edict against sexual tourism is so broad it probably will not withstand constitutional review:

Article 8 of the proposed Chapter Three says that anyone who promotes or carries out programs, campaigns, publicity announcements, making use of any medium to project the country at the national and international level as a tourist destination accessible for commercial sexual exploitation or
prostitution of persons of whatever age or sex shall be penalized with from four to eight years of prison.

The following article expands the range of suspects to those who own, rent, possess or administer an establishment or place designed for or benefiting from the trafficking of persons or related activities.
As always, there are definitional problems with the law, in part because prostitution is not prosecuted here and many persons adopt that lifestyle willingly.

The proposal defined trafficking in persons as promoting, facilitating or favoring the entrance to or exit from the country or movement within the country of persons of whatever sex to do one or various acts of prostitution or to submit them to exploitation, sexual or labor dependency, slavery or similar practices to slavery, forced work or service, submissive marriage, begging, illegal extraction of organs or irregular adoption.

By that definition the major airlines are vulnerable to the stipulated six to 10 years in jail. But elsewhere in the body of the proposal is a series of definitions in which situations like forced pregnancy, forced prostitution and forced labor are defined. Promotion prostitution of und***ge individuals is penalized with longer prison terms, under the proposal.

The proposal provides that those arrested for these crimes cannot bargain their way out of the case through the usual judicial conciliation process. No punishment is ordered for those who are described as victims even if they committed crimes as a consequence of the trafficking experience.

The proposed law appears to have been put in final form in 2009. Then-president Ã“scar Arias SÃ¡nchez and Janina del Vecchio, the security minister at the time, signed the document. However, the documents seems to have been studied by the ComisiÃ³n Especial de Seguridad Nacional, which was headed then by the current president, Laura Chinchilla. There was no mention of the proposal until Thursday.

There was no explanation why Casa Presidencial sat on the document for so many months.
As with all proposals, legislative committees will study it, make changes and additions and may not even vote on it.
Casa Presidencial said that the bill was a product of a national coalition that included input from the United Nations and International Organization for Migration.

President Chinchilla said during her campaign that she saw casinos as centers of prostitution. If passed, this proposal may be used as a weapon against casinos, bars and other locations that allow prostitutes to solicit business.

Usually unmentioned are the many illegal houses of prostitution that dot the metro area and the nightclubs where prostitution is tolerated

Author:	VegasBob [ Thu Jun 03, 2010 10:11 am ]
Post subject:	Where to go now?
With all the changes being made at Immigration here in CR, hopefully we won't have to find other places to monger. Let's see......Thailand is going thru another small scale civil war Brasil is going thru tearing down Helpe and having the dollar going thru the floor against the Real. Too expensive Colombia is making visiting more difficult by requiring yellow fever shots. Panama has elected a real do-gooder as President so expect the country to become less enthusiastic about our way of life. Maybe we will all have to find other hobbies .....maybe knitting

Author:	Bilko [ Thu Jun 03, 2010 11:51 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
Vegas Bob wrote: With all the changes being made at Immigration here in CR, hopefully we won't have to find other places to monger. Let's see......Thailand is going thru another small scale civil war Brasil is going thru tearing down Helpe and having the dollar going thru the floor against the Real. Too expensive Colombia is making visiting more difficult by requiring yellow fever shots. Panama has elected a real do-gooder as President so expect the country to become less enthusiastic about our way of life. Maybe we will all have to find other hobbies .....maybe knitting There, there Bob... is getting a yellow fever shot really that scary? I got one and it didn't hurt much. Dominican Republic is cheap, they tell me. Philippines is cheap... bit of a flight though. Why not get residency? One good night of your gambling winnings would pay for it.

Author:	Tjaco [ Fri Jun 04, 2010 7:26 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
Read today's, June 4h, AM Costa Rica news paper. The story on page 1 about the 'new law'. The last 2 paragraphs of the article state how the law could be directed toward casinos, bars, night clubs.

Author:	Estebanh [ Fri Jun 04, 2010 7:43 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
Tjaco wrote: Read today's, June 4h, AM Costa Rica news paper. The story on page 1 about the 'new law'. The last 2 paragraphs of the article state how the law could be directed toward casinos, bars, night clubs. This could very well be the end of our favorite venues. Yellow fever shots...no problemo!

Author:	PacoLoco [ Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:29 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
Quote: Huffinton Post, Amazon and other sites seem to promote sex tourism, as defined by proposal Chinchilla administration moves against sex tourism By the A.M. Costa Rica staff The central government wants to jail anyone who promotes Costa Rica as a sex tourism destination. That is part of a lengthy proposal for a trafficking-in-persons law that Casa Presidencial has kept on ice for more than a year but authorized its publication in the La Gaceta official newspaper Thursday. The measure also seeks to raise the airport exit tax from $26 to $27 with the extra dollar going to support a new Instituto Nacional contra la Trata de Personas. In a summary of the law, which is being sent to the Asamblea Nacional, those who drafted the document report that there only were two cases of sexual exploitation and two cases of labor exploitation in the last decade. In all, the authors said, there were 50 related cases in the last decade and at least 14 that involved trafficking in persons. News files show only three major case. One was in 2003 when police found nine Chldren, two weeks to 20 months old, at a La Uruca home. They were on their way to adoptions in the developed world. The legislation proposed Thursday also covers what it calls irregular adoptions. This year investigators found Asian fishermen working in what they said was servitude on boats in Puntarenas. There also was a case in MÃ©xico in which two Costa Rica women said they were tricked by promises of good jobs to go there and then they were forced into prostitution. Since a new immigration law went into effect in 2006 trafficking in persons has been punishable as a crime. The immigration law that went into effect March 1 continues that penalty. But some of those facing that charge have been individuals caught driving a car or microbus filled with willing Nicaraguan illegal immigrants. The summary of the proposed legislation says that the real statistics of human trafficking are much higher and hidden. The proposal also would provide temporary residency and other benefits to those considered victims of trafficking organizations. Some 20 percent of the proposed institute's budget is allocated as a fund for victims. The protection goes so far as to forbid disclosure of complainants' names or to facilitate interviews with the news media. In court cases, trafficking complainants would testify in private. If they are under age, even the suspects would be barred from the testimony, under terms of the proposal. The edict against sexual tourism is so broad it probably will not withstand constitutional review: Article 8 of the proposed Chapter Three says that anyone who promotes or carries out programs, campaigns, publicity announcements, making use of any medium to project the country at the national and international level as a tourist destination accessible for commercial sexual exploitation or prostitution of persons of whatever age or sex shall be penalized with from four to eight years of prison. The following article expands the range of suspects to those who own, rent, possess or administer an establishment or place designed for or benefiting from the trafficking of persons or related activities. As always, there are definitional problems with the law, in part because prostitution is not prosecuted here and many persons adopt that lifestyle willingly. The proposal defined trafficking in persons as promoting, facilitating or favoring the entrance to or exit from the country or movement within the country of persons of whatever sex to do one or various acts of prostitution or to submit them to exploitation, sexual or labor dependency, slavery or similar practices to slavery, forced work or service, submissive marriage, begging, illegal extraction of organs or irregular adoption. By that definition the major airlines are vulnerable to the stipulated six to 10 years in jail. But elsewhere in the body of the proposal is a series of definitions in which situations like forced pregnancy, forced prostitution and forced labor are defined. Promotion prostitution of und**ge individuals is penalized with longer prison terms, under the proposal. The proposal provides that those arrested for these crimes cannot bargain their way out of the case through the usual judicial conciliation process. No punishment is ordered for those who are described as victims even if they committed crimes as a consequence of the trafficking experience. The proposed law appears to have been put in final form in 2009. Then-president Ã“scar Arias SÃ¡nchez and Janina del Vecchio, the security minister at the time, signed the document. However, the documents seems to have been studied by the ComisiÃ³n Especial de Seguridad Nacional, which was headed then by the current president, Laura Chinchilla. There was no mention of the proposal until Thursday. There was no explanation why Casa Presidencial sat on the document for so many months. As with all proposals, legislative committees will study it, make changes and additions and may not even vote on it. Casa Presidencial said that the bill was a product of a national coalition that included input from the United Nations and International Organization for Migration. President Chinchilla said during her campaign that she saw casinos as centers of prostitution. If passed, this proposal may be used as a weapon against casinos, bars and other locations that allow prostitutes to solicit business. Usually unmentioned are the many illegal houses of prostitution that dot the metro area and the nightclubs where prostitution is tolerated

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Author:	HikerTom [ Fri Jun 04, 2010 10:25 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
And some guys here said that there was nothing to worry about, that The Rat couldn't do anything. Think again. It's starting.

Author:	Tourist [ Fri Jun 04, 2010 10:53 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
WOW! use of any medium is kinda scary. Depending on interpretation, just having a CRT card could put you in this category. imagine hotel raids, checking to see who is getting a CRT discount, then rousting them out in the middle of the night. we need to remember that we don't have the same civil liberties and search and entrapment laws don't apply.

Author:	PacoLoco [ Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:39 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
This was also discussed last year, Prolijo made some good points viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30710. Tourist wrote: imagine hotel raids, checking to see who is getting a CRT discount, then rousting them out in the middle of the night. That's a little paranoid don't ya think? Quote: The edict against sexual tourism is so broad it probably will not withstand constitutional review: As with all proposals, legislative committees will study it, make changes and additions and may not even vote on it. As always, there are definitional problems with the law, in part because prostitution is not prosecuted here and many persons adopt that lifestyle willingly. On the other hand since it is so broad and confusing, could it eventually be manipulated and used to target specific businesses?

Author:	Admin 1 [ Fri Jun 04, 2010 12:42 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
Gentlemen: This is nothing new this document was what was leaked back when the current President was running for office and is simply now published. I might also point out that there are a few things mentioned that you should take note such as "THEY MAY NOT EVEN VOTE ON IT" and "The edict against sexual tourism is so broad it probably will not withstand constitutional review" I would suggest you simply take a chill pill have an Imperial & enjoy yourselves.

Author:	Bktuna [ Fri Jun 04, 2010 1:07 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
Admin 1 nailed it, there is nothing new here. The ditor of AM Costa Rica is anti monger although he takes ad money from the DR and SL. In all likelihood, it will be the same as always. The massage parlors may have to be more careful of the pimping grey line but I do not see much else happening. BKTUNA/BOyd I am never going home

Author:	El Tranquilo [ Fri Jun 04, 2010 1:53 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
Although I agree that AM Costa Rica is anti-monger and that it's best to take a wait and see attitude on this, there is something new here. A specific proposal for new legislation has been published in La Gaceta, the government's official communication vehicle. That is different than campaign rhetoric or rumors. The road between proposed legislation and actual law may even be longer and more convoluted in CR than in The US, but publishing it in La Gaceta is the first official step. I think the amount and type of coverage this gets in the Spanish language media will tell us what kind of legs this has. I did a brief look around at the online versions of the local papers for the last couple days and didn't see any coverage of this.

Author:	Nhhank [ Fri Jun 04, 2010 4:17 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
Wait and see is my vote The story was very vauge in my book Is Tia Laura watching us The more we talk about her ...... I heard here handle was Crackerass

Author:	JazzboCR [ Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:33 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
Greengo wrote: "socialist suckling" contata (using convenient and soon to be forgotten victims) Exactly! As usual Greengo has got to the heart of the matter his own special way. Has anybody come up with a realistic estimate of job losses if Mongerdom withers in CR--not just the directly affected (that's a tough enough number to come up with) but also the ancillaries like fishing charter jobs, van drivers, lost sales in "civilian" restaurants etc.? NOTE: I am not trying to spread the FUD Factor with this, just looking for assessments and options.

Author:	Mike321 [ Sat Jun 05, 2010 9:06 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
sounds many crt'ers are paranoid.

Author:	TimBones [ Sat Jun 05, 2010 12:11 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Where to go now?
Just my HO, but this is actually the impact of a worldwide effort lead by Auntie Samantha, the elderly spinster sister of Uncle Sam. They know that they can't hit prostitution directly as it is legal and people normally engage in it freely, so they go after it at the margins. I believe there will be slight changes; maybe more raids and the like. Maybe even the adoption of the same questions employed by US Immigration and Customs Agents when you enter the country; in order to determine your true purpose in CR ( I normally say Scuba Diving) but I doubt there will be any significant impact if this law is passed.

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