Should child sex offenders be allowed to travel?
Australia has passed tough, “world-first” legislation that will deny passports to about 20,000 people on the national child sex offenders register. The aim is to stop Australians who are planning to abuse children in regions like South East Asia before they even get on a plane. But how will it work, is it fair and will other countries follow suit?
Close to 800 people on the register left Australia in 2016 – and nearly 40% of them had been convicted of offences against children under the age of 13, the government says.
Many went to poor countries in Asia that are common holiday destinations for Australians, but also magnets for sex tourism.
Senator Derryn Hinch, an outspoken former talk radio host who pushed for the legislation, said he wanted to end “child rape holidays” to places like Myanmar, Cambodia, the Philippines and Indonesia.
“This is one of the greatest days of my life,” he said in the Senate as the legislation passed.
At present those on the register – which is not publicly available – are allowed to travel but must notify local authorities before they do so. Australia in turn notifies the destination country.
But the government says the system has not worked effectively enough and the new rules will make Australia a “world leader” in protecting vulnerable children.
From the attached story regarding Australian offenders’ travel intentions:
“I don’t think it’s fair to say that every single one of them is going there to commit crimes, but on the whole they are not going for the beaches,” says Glen Hulley, the founder of Project Karma, a group combating child sex exploitation in Indonesia and the Philippines. He says his organisation has seen information being shared online detailing what villages in remote areas of Bali should be targeted, how much money should be paid to families and how to bribe police if caught.
My thoughts: It sounds like even bigger problems re: potential sex tourism in Bali are 1) families ready to sell their children for sex abuse, and 2) cops who completely ignore it all for a price.
Travel is a basic HUMAN RIGHT and no country on earth has the authority to remove that ability from an individual. PERIOD
Countries come and go (most should go) yet humans have been around and moving around long before most countries existed.
Australians need to read up on their history. They were a nation created by the “outcasts” of other countries and now they have created a virtual prison with a life sentence.
Who are the real criminals?
Those who have paid their debt to society and yet are punished until the day they die OR those who make up the rules and play God with other’s lives?
SexOffenderTruth.com
And the facts are that if you consider the statistics – it is not the already registered that will be going on these holidays but those that are not registered. I would also be curious to know how many were actually identified as traveling for sex crimes purposes or is this just conjured up in the minds of the legislators?
I wonder how many of those legislators travel to those locations as sex tourists.
Seems to me that if you want to know what a politician does in their “off time” just look at what they claim to be against when “working”.
So many times it proves the quite the opposite! I laugh everything I hear about a politician who runs a campaign on “family values” getting busted with a male escort or hooker, smoking crack, or seeking sex in an airport men’s room!
Ask Mark Foley, Dennis Hastert, Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer.
There’s a wikipedia page just for the federal politicians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_sex_scandals_in_the_United_States
I’m Australian and have a friend on the registry in Fl. I completely disagree with this law being bought in. The majority of registrants are NOT travelling to Asia in child sex jaunts – it’s close and cheap to travel to and it’s rather like heading to the Caribbean from Florida. Most of the people who are doing this are not on the registry here so this law only serves to punish those that are not doing the wrong thing and in turn, punish their families who wish to travel with them.
The politician in question who is bringing in all of these “reforms” is a former shock jock radio presenter that has been constantly sacked from jobs due to being so outrageous. He needed a new angle so joined politics and is now causing damage there. He is trying hard to have a public registry here whilst preaching that there is no vigilantism in the States and they have an open registry. The same man supports a bikie gang that openly has a FB page that tracks down the private addresses of registrants and torments them both in person and online. It’s crazy but it’s emotive and wins votes yet offers no real “solutions”. Simply because you can’t legislate yourself into safety.
So they based this archaic law on what some outrageous disc jockey said? That is insane!
Absolutely! And it was passed incredibly quickly without much public discussion.
He has one foot in the grave. I just wish he would end up there before he does much more damage.
Just like the garbage IML bill signed by former President Obama you need proof that citizens are engaging in these activities not just “they might”. And just like IML there isn’t any. I don’t know how the Australian political/judicial system works but I hope civil rights advocates have a opportunity to challenge this law.
There are documented cases of this happening where the person has been charged and jailed back in Australia, so yes it has happened. But out of a population of 23 million, there would be about 5-10 cases where it has actually happened. Not enough to warrant a complete ban on travel for all registrants in my opinion as there is so much grey area in terms of offences that put you on the registry!
Also, we don’t have a massive civil rights movement like you do in the States. So this won’t be challenged unfortunately.