Balinese children abducted and killed by pedophiles: Australian report

Balinese children abducted and killed by pedophiles: Australian report

Agencies
Sydney, Australia

Hundreds of Balinese children are feared to have been abused and
abducted, and some even killed, by pedophiles belonging to a
child sex network operating in the Indonesian resort island, an
investigation by The Australian newspaper alleged on Monday.

The report quoted an Australian expatriate, Gloria Goodwin who
runs the Crisis Care Foundation in the island's north, as saying
children had been drugged, had gone missing or had been found
dead.

Non-governmental agencies working in Bali had reported the
allegations to Interpol while the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security is also understood to be investigating "criminal
activities" on the island after a tip-off.

The latest allegations follow a report by Australian child
advocacy group Child Wise gave to the government last week which
said pedophile rings of Australians, Americans and Europeans were
operating largely undetected on the Indonesian island.

The Child Wise report has not been made public due to the
explicit nature of its contents.

Child Wise told AFP children on Bali's streets had reported
networks of thousands of foreign men preying on them, working
together and sharing the children.

"There is a village ... where three children died apparently
from sexual abuse and sodomy," the Child Wise report said.
"Apparently money changed hands and nothing came of the
investigation."

The newspaper quoted the report as saying that of the 80
children who were missing in the island's north, some were said
to have been killed "by one man in a sexual frenzy and buried in
a cave."

Some 80 children were said to be missing from an area
surrounding the village of Karangasem while other locals said
children had been abducted as they slept in their beds or walked
home from school.

Professor Luh Ketut Suryani, chairwoman for Bali's Committee
Against Sexual Abuse, raised the claims last week with Bali
police chief I Made Mangku Pastika, the newspaper said.

Suryani will travel to Karangasem later this month to teach
the villagers about how pedophiles operate.

Meanwhile, officials said in Canberra on Monday that Australia
will station a police officer on the Indonesian island of Bali
from this month to help crack down on a growing number of
tourists heading there to have sex with minors.

The move comes amid reports that paedophiles were also
adopting or fostering poverty-stricken children from Bali which
is struggling to rebuild its economy and tourism after nightclub
bombings in October 2002 killed over 200 people, mainly
foreigners.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty said
an officer -- appointed with Jakarta's permission -- would target
child abuse by wealthy foreigners, many of whom are Australian.

"The biggest priority he will have, outside terrorism and
prosecutions for the Bali bombings, is child sex tourism," Keelty
told a parliamentary committee.

AFP acting deputy commissioner John Lawler said the officer
would also investigate reports of children being abused after
being adopted or fostered by foreigners on the tropical island.
"We're aware of circumstances where it occurred," he said.

While child sex tourism is widespread across Southeast Asia,
the extent of the problem in Bali only hit the spotlight in
Australia last month with the arrest of former diplomat, William
Brown, 51, who is now awaiting trial there on charges of sexually
abusing two Balinese boys, aged 13 and 15.