Latvian girls urged to say 'no' to sex tourists

[Strengthandhonour]

Latvian girls urged to say 'no' to sex tourists

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 23/06/2007

A campaign has been launched to protect young women, writes Adrian Bridge.

Latvian girls are being urged to steer clear of one-night stands with tourists as part of a campaign to prevent the capital, Riga, turning into the "Bangkok of the Baltic".

The move comes following a huge increase in visitor numbers to the country, which has become popular with British stag parties looking for cheap alcohol - and sex. Over the next month, Latvian girls will be asked to consider very carefully whether they should agree to have sex with a visitor in return for a drink. The campaign also suggests that "sex tourism" should more accurately be called "sex terrorism".

"We want Latvians to accept that there is a problem and to start discussing it properly," said Evita Bille of the Alfa Centrs advertising agency involved in the campaign. "We don't want to be seen as a place where foreigners can come for cheap sex. We don't want to become the Bangkok of the Baltic.

"It is now so bad that many girls are frightened to go to the Old Town because tourists assume they can offer them money for sex." Riga, with its beautifully preserved Old Town and the nearby sandy beaches of Jurmala, was a popular holiday spot for members of the Politburo during Soviet times. But the opening up of the country to the West, a process accelerated by the arrival of low-cost airlines, has spawned a very different kind of visitor and a proliferation of late-night pick-up bars and strip clubs.

Those behind the campaign hope it could lead to laws curbing the seedier aspects of life in Riga, leading to a restoration of its image as a city of high culture.

In Krakow, another east European city that has been inundated with badly-behaved Britons, local leaders earlier this year said they wanted to control the excesses of stag party revellers. And in Slovakia earlier this month, a British groom-to-be who stripped off and jumped into a fountain in Bratislava was given a jail sentence.


source: Telegraph

[Menydh]

The report on News24.com adds more to the story:

\'War on sex terror\' in Latvia: World: News: News24

But it is this news report on Deutsche Welle from December 2001 that gives you and idea of the magnitude of the drama:

Fighting the Vilest Crime

Laws are sometimes not enough to protect children from predators

Deutsche Welle
December 12, 2001

A world congress against commercial sexual exploitation of children is underway in Japan. Germany's experience shows that tough laws alone do not solve the problem.

There’s no way you would know it, meeting her for the first time.

Sandra appears a quite average 16-year-old girl – mild mannered, a lover of hip-hop music and yard games, a semi-serious gymnasium student mostly willing to do her homework. She often wears a smile.

She lives a mostly normal life in Riga, capital of the former Soviet republic of Latvia.

Her mother drinks a bit much, but Sandra has a home, and when it gets too rough the neighbours – devout Orthodox Christians – invite her in for warm dinner and conversation.

Everything seems fine with her, but there’s something odd about her eyes. Somehow they betray cynicism and experience far beyond her age.

When Sandra stops smiling, you notice it right away. Her bright personality seems to go into recess.

It might be that she is remembering something, or just daydreaming. There is no way to know. Sandra – not her real name – is a former child prostitute.

Two years ago, she was for all intents and purposes a sex slave in Germany, tricked into it by a crime syndicate.

The police don’t know her story – neither the Germans nor the Latvians. There is no official record, but it is true.

Law falls short

Like most sexually exploited children, Sandra has never benefited from the legal protections in Germany, the European Union and her own country. She slipped through the cracks between legal ideals and brutal realities.

Individuals saved her, not the law.

This is her story, as told to Deutsche Welle Online by a social worker who discreetly works with Sandra, rehabilitating her.

Everyone’s identity is protected in this report. The entire point of the girl’s rehabilitation is to provide her a future as psychologically painless as possible. Keeping her past a private secret is crucial.

Sandra is just one of countless, faceless victims of a vast international trade in children. Their plight is rarely acknowledged and, often, only superficially addressed by governments whose good intentions have proven too weak to snuff out this vilest of crimes.

A world congress against commercial sexual exploitation of children is underway in Japan, run by UNICEF and two non-profit groups, ECPAT International and the NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

National efforts to contain the crime are struggling, under heavy pressure from criminal organisations that operate across borders, so officials have decided to come together to compare notes. There is much to learn, much to contain. But the congress in Yokohama, running until Thursday, is only the second of its kind.

Participants have been quick to point out both the importance of tougher laws and the fact that some of the world’s toughest laws are failing, in countries like the Philippines.

UN-Weltkongress gegen die sexuelle Ausbeutung von KindernBildunterschrift: UN-Weltkongress gegen die sexuelle Ausbeutung von Kindern

European scourge

Organised child sexual exploitation, many Europeans would like to think, is a south-east Asian and African phenomenon. But it thrives here, too, as Sandra’s story shows.

The so-called Iron Curtain has fallen, but an economic divide remains. Lured by the wealth of western Europe, some victims from the east find themselves caught.

Sandra’s mother, short for cash like many Latvians, was tricked into moving to Germany by a phoney job-placement scheme. A job in the West seemed like a ticket to steady income, and moving was easy since most east European citizens enjoy visa-free travel rights in the EU. Once the mother arrived, the daughter followed, thinking everything was in order.

But before long it became clear that this was no ordinary job, and there was no ordinary way out. Often in such cases, unwilling workers are forced to stay and work by employers, pimps, who manipulate them with financial and physical threats.

Victims are generally too scared to call the police, either for shame or because they have been working illegally, without work permission.

In the case of Sandra and her mother, “basically, it took some people to go to Germany and physically take them out,” says a social worker. She refused to go into greater details about the adventure. She shudders when she mentions it.

Germany’s record

If Germany’s government failed these two victims, it still cannot be accused of overt negligence.

In 1998, Germany strengthened its laws against sexual exploitation of children, pornography and sex tourism.

The Federal Republic is a signatory to all the international treaties protecting children’s rights.

Germany is also one of the few countries to have passed a law enabling it to extradite sex tourists arrested abroad for exploiting children. Suspects can be brought back to Germany for trial and potentially harsh punishment.

Yet according to the estimates of watch-dog groups such as ECPAT International, some 10,000 German sex tourists travel abroad each year.

The government has a special working group on “trade in women”, trying to tackle the problem of human-trafficking, especially of women and girls. Protections cover not only the very young but also girls aged 14 to18.

Yet Germany remains a zone of transit for the trade, and a destination. Common borders with Poland and the Czech Republic pose a particular challenge. Germany’s eastern border, in a sense, marks the line between rich and poor Europe.

The victims of trafficking in Germany could be as few as 2,000 per year or as many as 20,000, ECPAT reports. Most but not all are aged between 16 and 25.

The introduction of the euro, a boon to traders of all kinds, may unfortunately also make such trafficking easier. International bank transfers and deals done in cash will be easier than ever.

This fight is far from over, most of all for today’s victims and survivors like Sandra, likely scarred for life.


[source]

[Menydh]

A similar problem in the Czech Republic:

Child sex trade thrives in Czech Republic

EUbusiness
January 3, 2007

Helena started in the profession aged 16 "when my mother sold me to a pimp." Her sister was six when she was "led to a client", and to this day the young gypsy does not know what became of her.

Helena's heartbreaking history -- she passed through the hands of around 20 pimps and was made to serve "20 to 30 clients a day" -- highlights how social distress and poverty still reduces some families into selling their children into the Czech sex trade, sometimes at a very early age.

Child prostitution took off with the end of communism and the opening of frontiers at the start of the 1990s and still thrives, according to Jiri Istvanik. He heads a special police task force in the west Czech town of Cheb that lies on the German border and has become infamous as a magnet for sex tourism.

European Union membership in 2004 has changed little.

"As long as the economic situation does not develop and there are different standards of living on both sides of the frontier, it will continue," commented Ludmilla Irmscher, a member of the German non-governmental organisation, Karo, which was created 10 years ago.

In 2005, 119 adults were charged with procuring minors, according to figures from the Czech interior ministry though specialist associations say this number should be multiplied several times to reflect reality.

Between five and 10 percent of women victims of human trafficking in the Czech Republic are underage, according to a 2004 report by the Czech Institute of Criminology (IKSP). "Clients" are for the most part Germans, Austrians and British, according to the ministry.

In Cheb, some maintain that child prostitution is a myth fostered by gypsies to attract foreign paedophiles to the town's deprived districts so that they can be robbed.

But local authorities and police do not deny the existence of child prostitution and say they are doing everything to combat it. "The gypsy community is the principle supplier (of children), the people are poor and for them it is a means of surviving," Istvanik asserted.

Cheb Mayor Jan Svoboda maintains that Czech law -- which fixes 15 as the age for consensual sex, compared with 18 years in neighbouring Germany -- helps attract the fans of young flesh.

The phenomenon is so commonplace that in the town's parks, young children play a game called "hookers and pimps", according to a UNICEF study published in June 2005.

One child in four, in the town of around 36,000, considers prostitution as a legitimate means of gaining a living, with around a third saying they have seen a child prostitute, according to the same study.

"We sometimes see girls of 13 and 14 passing the night at the side of roads," deplored Martina, a Karo worker who regularly tours the frontier region to distribute syringes and condoms to prostitutes.


[source]

Even more chilling, this BBC report from October 2003:

BBC NEWS | Europe | UN damns Czech-German child sex

[Strengthandhonour]

EXCLUSIVE: BRITS GO VULGAR IN THE BULGARS
EXCLUSIVE PEOPLE INVESTIGATION into new sun-and-sin resort that's turning Black Sea blue
By Jessica Boulton Jessica.Boulton@People.Co.Uk


AN idyllic family resort has been turned into Europe's new capital of debauchery by sex-crazed Brits, The People can reveal. Youngsters on £170 package holidays are flocking to Sunny Beach on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast for weeklong orgies of sex and booze.

Families at the once-beautiful Balkan resort with a long golden beach watch appalled as blind-drunk Brits...

BONK shamelessly in the street, on the beach, by the pool and in the grass verges.

HIRE hookers as young as 14 for just 10 Bulgarian Levs - £3.50.

RENT rooms in so-called family hotels for only an hour for unprotected romps with virtual strangers.

DRINK themselves to oblivion with gallons of lager at just 50p a pint.

PUT a huge strain on scarce medical resources when they have to be revived from a drunken coma or treated for sex infections.

Local tourist company boss Alexander Jachev said: "It used to be a family place here but now it's chaos, it's lawless." In the week that Brits were voted among the worst-behaved tourists in Europe, The People launched an investigation into Sunny Beach which has been dubbed "the new Faliraki" after the once-notorious Greek resort.

More than 100 new hotels have been thrown up in two years and the formerly sedate seafront promenade is now lined with cheap bars fuelling Brit youngsters with £1 spirits and 50p pints before a night of lust.

Bankworker Adam Storer, 22, laughed: "I got here three nights ago and I've had three girls already. I'm hoping for number four tonight. All the girls are up for it. They come here on the pull and the booze is so cheap we can get hammered for next to nothing. What more do you want?" Adam was cuddling Maria Stridh, 21, from Dublin, who brushed him off but said: "There are loads of girls clearly not older than 14 drinking and going home with a different lad each night."

In The Corner bar we met John Jenkins, 22, from Swindon, Wilts, slumped over super-strength vodka. "This is my 20th drink," he mumbles. I usually drink Stella. I've shagged one girl so far. Everyone's at it in our hotel, and me and my mates got told off for misbehaving in the pool last night."

By 1am drunken debauchery is everywhere.

In Lazur, the resort's biggest nightclub, a young brunette is pressed against the wall shamelessly cavorting with a blond guy, not worried about committing a sex act in public. Her friend reveals the girl is just 17. She says: "We have freedom here, that's why we like it."

A blonde girl is spotted floating face down in the club pool. Her pal dives in to pull her out but the girl is so intoxicated she can barely stand. In the Viking Bar two male cousins from a Bristol football team - dressed as nurses - proposition our girl reporter. Dan, 24, grins: "Can us two take you to the beach for a s***?"

The girls at Disco Orange, which promises to "put colour in your life", are more choosy. Wearing a tiny denim skirt, nanny Kelly Lee, 19, from Glasgow, said: "We want Bulgarian men. They have more respect for us than Scottish guys." In the club entrance a young girl has her legs wrapped round a man while he fondles her.

Down the road from the Happy Duck, nicknamed The Happy F***, a blonde is openly having sex with a hulking guy outside against a wall. The extroverts are almost as bad during daylight hours, with couples including lesbians getting frisky around a hotel pool.

Taxi driver Toshko Michaelis told us: "You see people having sex outside hotels, in bushes and on the beach. But they are good to us so don't listen to complaints." But the invasion of sun-and-sin tourists hasn't pleased everyone. On the promenade where families walk with their children, local girls as young as 14 offer their bodies for as little as 10 Levs or £3.50. In just 20 minutes our male investigator was approached four times, once by a girl of 15. Our man refused but the girls were not short of customers.

Some hotels are also cashing in on the sex free-for-all. The Pliska - advertised for families as "popular, friendly" - is happy to rent rooms by the hour with no questions asked for 40 Levs - about £14.

The booze, fights and sex mean Brits are piling into local medical centres. Dr Lachezar Kaitazky deals with at least six a week who are so drunk they need emergency medical help. He said: "I was called to an 18-year-old boy from Liverpool whose heart had stopped. I revived him and he told me 'Doc, I have not eaten for three days so there was more room for alcohol'."

The doctor also sees up to three Brits a week with sex infections. He complained: "When I'm treating them I'm not free to treat people with heart attacks, strokes or in car accidents." Tourist firm boss Alexander Jachev, used to specialise in day trips for families until they were driven away by lewd Brits. He said: "Bulgarian women do not get drunk and stagger around like British women. Brits also get aggressive when drunk, you see fights and hear awful words."

But even if the Bulgars think it's vulgar, one thing is for sure-there will be a long hot summer at Sunny Beach.

source: SundayMirror.co.uk - EXCLUSIVE: BRITS GO VULGAR IN THE BULGARS - EXCLUSIVE: BRITS GO VULGAR IN THE BULGARS

[Sergius]

Originally Posted by Strengthandhonour

The doctor also sees up to three Brits a week with sex infections.

By any chance terminal infections?

[Sergius]

This behaviour needs to be dealt with in the most serious manner possible.

[Errigal]

I wonder what the locals in these various resort towns have to say about other nationalities other than the English and Scots? I can easily believe tourists from the UK are as bad as described but I wonder about other binge-drinking northern countries as well.

I found this article which says the Brits are rated second worst by hoteliers but I myself think ruining a whole town with public drunkenness is a greater crime than being rude to waiters and hotel staff, as they say here of the French.

Brits voted second worst tourists in Expedia league

The reputation of Brits abroad is as bad as it was five years ago, according to Expedia's 2007 Best Tourist League.

The league, based on the views of 15,000 European hoteliers, put Brits in the top five worst nationalities because of their noisy and untidy holiday habits, bad behaviour and miserly tipping.

But it was an improvement on 2002, when hoteliers named Brits as the worst tourists overall.

This time Brits came second to the French, who were criticised for their unwillingness to speak the local language, lack of generosity and impoliteness.

"We decided to compile another Best Tourist League to reassess the reputation of British tourists - obviously with the hope that we would have risen up the ranks since 2002," says Caroline Cartellieri, managing director of Expedia.co.uk.

"However, it's disappointing to learn that our position in the world rankings hasn't really changed, with foreign hoteliers still perceiving Brits as noisy, untidy and badly dressed.

"Although it's good to see Brits perceived as generous in their spending habits, now we just need to work on ditching those 'socks and sandals'."

Brits were voted the second worst dressed tourists, second only to the Americans. Unsurprisingly, tourists from Italy, France and Spain lead the way in the holiday-style stakes.

Good old British manners seem to have fallen by the wayside with British hoteliers rating their countrymen the third most impolite nationality.

Brits have also shaken off their traditional reserve to become one of the top three biggest holiday complainers.

Despite their faults, hoteliers do look favourably upon British spending habits, voting them the third biggest holiday spenders after the Americans and Russians.
But Brits are not so generous when it comes to tipping, with even British hoteliers voting British tourists as the meanest tippers.

The harshest criticism of Brits came from British hoteliers, who voted them the worst behaved of all nationalities, preferring even the Germans.

According to hoteliers, the best tourists in the world are the polite and tidy Japanese, who secured 35% more votes than the Americans who came in second.

New to this year's list were the Swiss who came in third and were commended for being quiet and considerate.

Source


also:
BBC NEWS | Talking Point | Who are the world\'s worst tourists?

[Susi]

This is all so shameful.. sickening. I totally agree with Ljubo.

[Franze]

The beauty is for seeing and watching not for destroying, when I went to Sweden, Norway or Denmark, I am happy for watching beautiful women but nothing more, they´re monuments of the country, but like the monuments you don´t have to touch them.

[Loorberitega Pärjatu]

EasyJet brings those 'lads' to Tallinn too. Not very nice to watch or listen. Even the Finns are somewhat better because they are not so arrogant. The girls speak Russian usually and part of them are imported from Russia. I couldn't think any Estonian girl I know going somewhere with heavily drunken lad for a drink. The most stupid ones may go with Italians .

[svin]

couldn't think any Estonian girl I know going somewhere with heavily drunken lad for a drink.

Well, none of Russian girls I know will do the same, but that doesn't mean they do not exist.

[Loorberitega Pärjatu]

I didn't mean that Russian girls would do it more easily, that they are worse, but the fact is that the prostitutes and the guys who handle this 'business' have names that end with -ov, -ev, -in or -ski. Same in Latvia. Just sad truth.

[Dexter]

Originally Posted by Loorberitega Pärjatu

I didn't mean that Russian girls would do it more easily, that they are worse, but the fact is that the prostitutes and the guys who handle this 'business' have names that end with -ov, -ev, -in or -ski. Same in Latvia. Just sad truth.

Did you go to them and ask their names personally ? Seriously unless you're willing to show me some proof i will class this post as another russophobic rant by an Estonian.

[Loorberitega Pärjatu]

Yes, I've spoken to them, they come and start to talk to you in the Old Town of Tallinn. And if it appears that you're local, you'll get words like 'pošel na h**!' I've seen the nightlife. There are also police programmes on tv that show it clearly. About russophobia I don't know. All phobias have some reasons, but those are off-topic here.