human rights

Group focuses on sex trade

A campaign will kick off next week to discourage people from paying for sex with minors.

la prensa

social apathy:Several studies have shown that many Panamanians don’t view paying for sex with minors as a major problem.1101947

A campaign hoping to create a culture of "zero tolerance" of the country’s sex trade will be launched on Oct. 14, by members of the Comisión Nacional para la Prevención de los Delitos de Explotación Sexual (Conapredes).

This will mark the second time that the commission, chaired by Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez, has organized a program aimed at combating a problem that, according to experts and the results of several sociological studies suggest, is commonly viewed as a "normal" part of Panamanian society.

With the new slogan, "Paying for having sex with a minor will send you to jail," Conapredes seeks to protect a demographic that has become the victim of increasing societal indifference.

Eiselys Vásquez, of the Secretaría Ad hoc de Conapredes, explained that, culturally, Panamanians have grown accustomed to seeing sexually exploitative behavior as something natural, and some even blame minors for problems of this sort.

That belief in particular will be the target of the campaign. It will attempt to demonstrate that the culprit of these crimes is the man or woman who offers children money to engage in illicit sex.

In 2001, the Programa Internacional para la Erradicación del Trabajo Infantil joined forces with the Instituto de la Mujer de la Universidad de Panamá to collaborate on a study that showed how widespread tolerance of commercial sexual exploitation had become within the Panamanian community, despite it being a serious criminal offense and a violation of the most elementary of human rights.

Then, in 2006, a study conducted by the Organización Internacional del Trabajo/IPEC found that 25 percent of Panamanians said they wouldn’t label that kind of exploitation a crime because they didn’t feel that commercial sex represented a real problem.

Patricia Simonds, who works with a program about commercial sexual exploitation sponsored by the Ministerio de Desarrollo Social and held in Tocumen, 24 de Diciembre and Las Mañanitas, said it has proven an uphill battle to bring awareness of sex abuses among residents of these communities.

In her research, Simonds has found that people often view the situation as a necessary evil, since the money that the minors bring in can make the difference in a household that has trouble making ends meet.

Staff of the Mides program say they have realized that changing the prevailing mentality on this issue is not going to be achieved “in the short-term.”

Marcelino Aguilar, a lawyer specializing in sex crimes, explained that a law passed in 2004 officially criminalized sexual exploitation of minors, and that since then there have been several convictions.

Data from the Dirección de Investigación Judicial indicate that between 2004 and 2007, 116 cases of illegal child pornography, sex tourism, prostitution and sex trafficking were investigated.