Seriously Wrong

Coming back to Cambodia I’ve noticed the new billboards, brochures, magazine ads and signs on the back of tuk-tuks that declare:

Cambodia Welcomes Responsible Tourists. Protecting Our Children.

Is is the latest in a series....

I’m all for the billboards....But I’m still pissed off when I read about the pathetic sentences received by convinced pedophiles who have come to Cambodia to sexually abuse kids. (And we are talking here about the eight or so foreigners per year who get caught.)

This past week The Mekong Times reported that a Russian pedophile who was released from jail after serving just six months. Nikita Belov, 26, was convicted of subjecting three girls between the ages of seven and thirteen to “indecent acts” and originally sentenced to three years in prison. He was released after serving six months and 15 days. Belov was asked to pay US$250 in compensation to the three victims.

The Cambodia Daily also ran this article:

A court in the state of Kiel of Friday convicted 49-year-old repeat German sex offender Mattias Ohms of sexually abusing four Cambodian boys and sentenced him to six years in prison, the Associated Press reported. The Cambodian victims testifying at the trial had been the first foreign children ever to give evidence of sex abuse in a German court. After his Feb 7 arrest...authorities said Ohms, who is HIV positive, had been determined to infect his victims with the HIV virus.

What kinds of messages does this send to tourists?

Four Cambodian boys’ life sentence of HIV + trauma = One tourists’ six years in jail.

Get caught engaging in “indecent acts” with girls and you’ll have to pay 250 bucks?