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New strategy promised to combat sex tourism here
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Officials are promising a new plan in a few days to combat what they call sexual tourism.

This was the word Wednesday from Mario Víquez, director of the Patronato Nacional de la Infancia. He and others concerned with prostitution and exploitation of Ch*ldren met to discuss the recent report by the United States about trafficking in persons. The United States said that Costa Rica is a source, transit, and destination country for women and Ch*ldren trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.

However, the session covered a wide range. Ana Durán Salvatierra, the vice minister of Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública, said that fliers soon would be distributed in Jacó, Tamarindo and other beach towns warning tourists of the legal pitfalls in associating with minors.

She also said that officials would attempt to do a survey to get an idea of the magnitude of the human trafficking problem in Costa Rica. Among other steps, an unnamed Italian Mafia expert is being invited to the country to provide training in fighting organized crime, she said.

The areas overlap, so much so that the International Organization for Migration even provided a graphic to show the difference between the illegal trafficking of migrants and trafficking in persons. The first usually is voluntary, but the second usually is not, although traffickers may participate in both activities.

The other manifestation is trafficking minors for sexual purposes. This is illegal whether the minor agrees or does not.

Since February when they were installed, there have been some 40 calls to report the trafficking of minors for sexual purposes, according to the regional office of the Organization for Migration. The phones are run in conjunction with the Patronato Nacional and the 911 service.

The report suggested that the calls could be a result of more sensitivity to the topic by the citizens.

Víquez gave no clue what proposals may be in mind to combat sexual tourism or if only prostitution of minors would be targeted. This area, too, has many overlapping populations, from woman who voluntarily come to Costa Rica to work as prostitutes to those who may have been tricked into working in a brothel. He promised a new strategy.

Like the gun and drug trade, trafficking is a clandestine business, the officials agreed. And it was clear that without statistics, officials would be hard-pressed to talk about specifics. Not made clear was how a statistical evaluation of the situation would be made..

The four persons addressing the issue have a lot of experience in the area. Also there was+ Milena Grillo, executive director of Fundación Paniamor and Agueda Marín of the trafficking unit of the migration organization.

Among some of the plans are a training session in August of police in the Guanacaste area on sexual tourism and the involvement of minors. In July Paniamor will distribute bumper stickers to truckers who travel the country to show their rejection of trafficking of minors.

Paniamor also will attempt to construct maps of routes used to traffic persons into Costa Rica, said the organization. This will be done with the security ministry. However, most policemen agree that the major access point for prostitutes is Juan Santamaría airport where hundreds of sex workers from all over the world land every year.


Paniamor is the organization responsible for signs hung in the airport warning against sexual contact with minors.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

Is this a startegy to help stop the minors from being exploited (great news) or is this the start of the do-gooders imposing their will on consenting adults. (VERY BAD NEWS) My next question is "why are they concentrating on the beach communities when SJ is the center of the Universe for these activities? Doesn't it just warm your hearts to see that the report that started all this is from the good old U.S. of A. Bushy and his Christian coilition are extending their long arms. Maybe he should spend more time trying to get the U.S. out of Iraq instead of messing with Costa Rica.Eliminating prostitution within consenting adults may be good for the construction boom at the beachs.but it sure as hell isn't going to help the economy of my neighborhood. Activities like this make me glad that I decided to rent rather than buy here.

ABSOLUTELY !!!!!

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You ALWAYS have an option ....... "NEXT" !!!

Bob, I'm not a Bush fan, but he cannot drop everything on the government's plate and just concentrate on Iraq. I applaud any effort at stopping pedophilia.

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Anything that helps minimize pedophilia is a good thing...

The last time that I visited the DR, it did not appear that anyone was exploiting the workers. Hell, I only went for a diet Coke, but accidently left my stick outside.

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Sounds like the CR government is positioning itself for one last foreign aid package while our moralistic government is still in power… smart move, get the $$$ while you still can…

Mendo

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"It takes a lot of good beer to make a great wine"

I am all for anything that gets these assholes out of here. There are so many hot adult women in CR, those that come to prey on Ch*ldren should be executed as far as I am concerned. It is one thing if you are mistaken on age and it is another if you are exporting Ch*ldren to pimp them out. Shot those assholes.

Pedophilia is to be detested, no question. Likewise kidnapping and slavery of any type, sexual or otherwise.

The problem I see is that the moral crusaders want to equate them with sex tourism. They want to stir up emotion and hope it'll spill over into anti prostitution sentiment and, they hope, laws.

No doubt there are sex tourists here in CR who look for girls under 18. But I would wager that most of the sexual activity with girls under 18 is done by locals, not tourists. They could close the Del Rey, Key Largo, Zona Blue, and every other place in town and I doubt it would reduce such activity by much.

As far as human trafficking (sp?) goes, Costa Rica may be a waystation on some underground highway, but I don't see it as a destination. There's just not enough money here and there's too much local competetion to make it profitable enough. Once again, I believe the people beating the drum on this issue are those who want to whip up as much outrage as possible and HOPE it spills over to help their anti-sex agenda. I don't know how you fight a media whose bread and butter is sensationalism. Bilko versus Fox 'news?' I don't think I'd even get past the weigh in.

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"The only normal people are those you don't know very well." Joe Ancis

I see your point, but I look at it differently.

We should all be against the pedophilia and we should support all efforts to eradicate it. As long as there is a problem with that in CR, our hobby is going to be under scrutiny. I for one do not want to be even remotely associated with it in any way shape or form.

I would also submit that if anyone from the outside were to look at this site and see that CRT was in anyway supportive of this crime it would reflect negatively on all of us.

Pedophilia is a terrible crime. We should be the first to partner with any organizations efforts to stamp it out.

And where are you gonna send them KC? I bet that most of those pedo are Costa Rican.

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Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly!

Those that are Costa Rican are none of our concern. Those that our fellow Gringos ARE! Send the assholes to prison. Where else? I'll be first in line to call the police if I see any such activity.


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