Aboriginal Land Returned; Pacific Women Offering Sex for Food; Poverty the Reason for Child Sex Trafficking in Indonesia

By Christopher Gehrke
Impunity Watch Senior Desk Officer, South America

CANBERRA, Australia – Over thirty years of state government opposition to indigenous control of land was reversed today when the Australian government returned its largest remaining tract of rainforest to Cape York Aborigines.

Cape York, 695 square miles, has a human population of just 15,000.  According to Reuters, Aborigines have inhabited for 45,000 years.  They have higher rates of unemployment, substance abuse and domestic violence than other Australians.  Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister, apologized to Aborigines in February for 200 years of injustices stemming from Britain’s colonization.

Aborigines have been making steady gains in reaching land agreements allowing them to use traditional lands for their own benefit.  Experts believe that the Cape York land handed over will yield ecotourism opportunities.

For more information, please see:

Reuters – Australian Aborigines get pristine forest back – 5 August 2008

ABC News – Qld Govt hands back national park to owners – 6 August 2008

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MEXICO CITY, Mexico – Delegates at a major AIDS conference in Mexico city cited cases of fisherwomen in the Pacific offering sex for food.  This is seen as another consequence of rising food prices, and is raising the rise of HIV infection, U.N. officials said Monday.

According to the U.N. overfishing of tuna in the Pacific has forced Papua New Guinea fisherwomen to join the crews of larger boats, where they engage in “fish for sex” deals.

For more information, please see:

ABC News – AIDS Threat:  Trading Sex for Food – 4 August 2008

Radio New Zealand – UN says HIV spreads by Pacific women selling sex for food – 5 August 2008

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JAKARTA, Indonesia – Human sex trafficking thrives in Indonesia due to extreme poverty, reports the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“The root of the problem is poverty, but in some areas…prostitution is accepted.  It’s the culture,” explains the International Labor Organization’s Arum Ratnawati, describing people so poor they sell or send their children into commercial sex work to earn income for their families.

Over 4 million schoolchildren are unable to go to school in Indonesia, and 70,000 were trafficked for prostitution.  Most girls are tricked into prostitution by family members, relatives, or other people they trust who promise them jobs.  They are often forced to pay off the debt the trafficker paid their parents in brothels, between $55-$110.

For more information, please see:

IRIN – INDONESIA:  Poverty at root of commercial sex work – 24 July 2008

The New Nation – Don’t make women trade-item for tourism – 18 July 2008