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Roatan and Bay Islands Discussion List Archive
| Posted On: | 22-Mar-2005 |
| From: | SABAS WHITTAKER [sabaswhittaker.....net] |
| Subject: | [roatan] Honduras Unwanted Tourism |
Honduras: Unwanted tourists The Economist Honduras gets tough on child prostitution For better and for worse, Honduras's Atlantic coast has long enjoyed a reputation as being at the raffish end of the Caribbean experience. After all, it is cheap and cheerful, a diver's paradise, and home to the famous black Garífuna culture. And for those same reasons, as well as for its hundreds of miles of often uninhabited coastline, it also attracts more than its fair share of smugglers, drug-traffickers and sundry other outlaws. Not for nothing did Paul Theroux set his novel of madness in the jungle, "The Mosquito Coast", here. But now the Honduran authorities want to get tough with at least one of the coast's more seedy afflictions, the trafficking and sexual exploitation of central American children. According to Honduras's deputy head of police, this is a "grave and delicate problem", particularly around the tourist centres of Tela, La Ceiba and Roatan, frequented by Americans and Europeans. In the past, Honduras's mainly Catholic, conservative society has been reluctant to discuss the problem openly. But the abuse has grown so blatant that such wilful disregard is no longer possible. Exactly how big the problem is, no one is quite sure, only that over the past couple of decades it has been getting worse and that western visitors are much to blame. In Tela, for instance, Jiovany Murillo, head of the local Tourist and Community Police, guesses that as many as 40% of the 120,000 annual visitors to the town could be sex tourists. Some may do nothing more than take supposedly innocent "holiday snaps" of children and women on the beach, and then post them on the internet, he says. But others do much worse. Honduras's Atlantic coast is a region of often extreme poverty, and this makes many children, often victims of sexual abuse in their own homes, easy prey for local child-trafficking gangs. To break this cycle, and to puncture the climate of embarrassed silence, charities such as Save the Children and Casa Alianza, along with local government agencies have started running programmes to raise public awareness. But what is most needed, both they and the law enforcement agencies argue, is much tougher legislation of the kind used by Costa Rica since the mid-1990s. In Honduras, it is difficult to bring criminal charges against those suspected of child trafficking and exploitation, as distinct from physical abuse. Even when charges stick, the penalties are often light, ranging from small fines to just a few years in prison. But this may soon change. Under proposed changes to the penal code now being considered by the Supreme Court, prosecutions would become easier and sanctions much tougher. Many are sceptical as to whether this will act as much of a deterrent to poor Hondurans, who see the sex-trade as an easy way to make money. But it could make those visiting westerners think again. Source: The Economist http://www.roatanet.com To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/roatan/ roatan- : | |
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