One night in Kuta Sasi came back in the hostel his eyes size of dinner plates. On the way to a supermarket, he had been offered to buy “very young girls” from a guy whispering from the shadows. And as it ended up, it wasn’t the last of these offers. One chap tried to offer “young girls, boys, anything you want”. All the time he went out alone, there was someone offering him sex, drugs and rock n’ roll (pirate CDs/DVDs). When we went out together, it was just the latter, and occasionally drugs.

Indonesia, unfortunately, has become THE place for child sex tourists. It is the third in the world after Brazil and Vietnam, says the statistics. According to a local newspaper, there has been 47 cases of under-aged victims of molesting in 9 months in Bali only. These are the reported cases, so how many there is in the reality is not known. And majority of the harassment is done by foreign tourists.

According to official statistics, around 150 000 Indonesian children are exploited sexually and commercially every year. Estimation is that 80 % of them are lured into prostitution, mainly in tourist areas such as Kuta in Bali. Some of the professional sex workers are only 11 or 12 years old.

Even if this is a serious crime and really ugly face of tourism, there is no need for witch hunts though. In Lovina in the Norther coast of Bali, we saw heaps of older (read: in their 70′s) men with local girls. These girls were over 18, though, even if quite young for the men. And then there was this gray-haired panther in the pool playing with a young girl, aged about 8. Some of our travel buddies draw a bit hasty conclusions to think it was his sex toy. It was actually his daughter. So not ALL is bad, and in quite many of these old-young (mature, though) relationships there is love involved, as there was in Thailand, too.

Having said that, I don’t think there is anything so unforgivable than molesting a child. These disgusting animals should be in prison for the rest of their days, and may them be long and full of misery. I don’t believe to death penalty, I think its too easy way out. In Malaysia child molesters get whipped first before their long prison sentence. That’s more like it.

Maiku