|
The state of Pernambuco, which, according to Brazil's Ministry of Tourism, ranks fourth among Northeastern Brazilian states in sexual tourism involving children and adolescents, has begun to take punitive and preventive actions to ban this crime.
The first step was taken Tuesday, April 11, with the inauguration of a campaign by the Brazilian Hotel Industry Association (ABIH). The actions will be carried out in partnership with the Integrated Center of Family Support (CIAF), the Recife Convention Bureau (an entity that organizes tourist events), and a French non-governmental organization linked to the International Network to Combat Sexual Exploitation.
The coordinator of the CIAF, Wilson Lins de Oliveira Júnior, said that, from now on, tourists who come to Pernambuco for the purpose of practicing sexual tourism will discover that the taxi and hotel industries no longer abet the practice.
"This is a type of visitor in which we aren't interested. They hardly spend money in the bar and restaurant sectors, they don't go to shopping centers to buy presents; all they care about is perverted behavior. We want to keep this kind of individual out and make room for family tourists," he emphasized.
He pointed out that countries like Thailand and Indonesia that invested in sexual tourism gained a bad reputation and are now making an international effort to recoup their images.
The campaign includes placing posters in hotel reception areas and rooms with information about the code of conduct that protects children and adolescents. Furthermore, children and youth who sell items on beaches will be given orientations on how to avoid being molested by tourists.
Next Monday, April 17, hotel employees will begin receiving training on how to reject solicitations by guests to act as accomplices in this illegal activity.
Airlines will also inform passengers on international flights bound for the Guararapes international airport, in the state capital, Recife, of the laws to protect children and adolescents.
The Councilor of the Paris Supreme Court, Marne Dominique Vergez, who participated in the inauguration of the campaign, said that a report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that the sexual tourists who go to Northeast Brazil are mainly from European countries (such as Italy and Portugal) and are between 20 and 40 years old.
Abr
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.