Dessalines Is Rising!!
Ayisyen: You Are Not Alone!

Editorial - Occupied Haiti To be Vaccinated! Franklin Ellis, Nov. 11, 2007 Fanmi Lavalas Emission
(Mp3 - 12:41| in French)
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Haïti/Propagation du Sida : Les erreurs du professeur Michael Worobey
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The Two Most Common Storylines
about Haiti and Haitians
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Media Lies and Real Haiti News
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U.S. Patterns in Haiti
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Dessalines' Law
Jean Jacques Dessalines

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Possible Media Bias on coverage of Gilbert/Worobey report
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The Uses of Haiti (1994, updated 2005) by Paul Farmer
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Canadian aid worker guilty of assaulting Haitian boys
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Canadians convicted of sex assault at Haiti orphanage
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SODA Resolution, March 15, 2009******************

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"... An estimated 600,000 Western women have engaged in travel sex from 1980 to the present..."
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"...Although the term "sex tourism" usually conjures up planeloads of dirty old men flying to Bangkok, it is the opposite in Gambia. Gambia bound planes, according to a recent Reuters article, "regularly arrive with a high proportion of women traveling alone." Britain was singled out as a country of origin for many of these female sex tourists, but the phenomenon appears to be European in general. .."

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Europeans charged over child 'abductions' in Chad

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The White Saviors of Haiti vs. Haitian Self-determinatin and Actualization by Marguerite "Ezili Dantò" Laurent, Sept. 17, 2005
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French Aid Workers Sentenced and French Aid Workers Charged with kidnapping scheme in Chad
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Peacekeepers accused of abuse in Haiti
Fri Nov 2, 2007 6:40pm GMT

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - More than 100 Sri Lankan peacekeepers have been accused of sexual exploitation and abuse in Haiti and will be sent home on Saturday, the United Nations said, in the latest sexual abuse scandal involving U.N. peacekeeping missions.

U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said on Friday 108 of Sri Lanka's 950 soldiers in Haiti were being sent home on disciplinary grounds.

"The United Nations and the Sri Lankan government deeply regret any sexual exploitation and abuse that has occurred," Montas told reporters, adding that U.N. authorities were working to assist the victims.

Asked about the specific allegations against the peacekeepers, Montas said they involved "transactional sex."

"There is a question of some underage girls," she added.

Montas said Sri Lanka would take further action against those accused of abuse. "They are back under national jurisdiction. So far Sri Lanka has said ... that they are going to be prosecuted in Sri Lanka."

Over the last few years as peacekeeping missions have expanded, reports of abuse have spread in various African nations, especially the Democratic Republic of the Congo, despite the U.N.'s declared "zero-tolerance" policy.

The United Nations largely ignored sexual exploitation by peacekeepers and other field staff for decades, launching a public crackdown only in recent years after reports of abuse surfaced in the Congo.

A 2005 U.N. report said soldiers should be punished for any sexual abuse, their pay docked and a fund set up to assist any women and girls they impregnated. But member nations have not agreed.

© Reuters 2007.

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Going South, a film about North American women looking for sex and sun in
Haiti

"... An estimated 600,000 Western women have engaged in travel sex from 1980
to the present..."
http://www.beaumonde.net/headingsouth.shtml ;|


Older white women join Kenya's sex tourists
By Jeremy Clarke, Nov. 26, 2007, Reuters

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Europeans charged over child 'abductions' in Chad, October 31, 2007, Kuwait Times
("...Sixteen Europeans charged over the alleged abduction of 103 children sat
in a dusty cell in eastern Chad yesterday, as a row escalated in France over
the failure to prevent the operation.

Nine French nationals, including six members of the charity Zoe's Ark and
three journalists, were charged late Monday with "kidnapping minors" and "fraud" for
attempting to fly the children from the Chad-Darfur border to France,
prosecutors in the eastern town of Abeche said....") See also: French Aid Workers Sentenced and French Aid Workers Charged with kidnapping scheme in Chad
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Although the term "sex tourism" usually conjures up planeloads of dirty old
men flying to Bangkok, it is the opposite in Gambia. Gambia bound planes,
according to a recent Reuters article, "regularly arrive with a high
proportion of women traveling alone." Britain was singled out as a country of origin for many of these female sex tourists, but the phenomenon appears to be European in general. http://www.gadling.com/2006/05/20/
sex-tourism - not-just-for-men-anymore/
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In many African countries, it is common to see older white men with young local
black women, but Gambia, along with some resorts in neighboring Senegal, has
earned a name as a place for older European women to meet young African
men....60-70 percent of visitors to one of the main tourist areas near the
capital Banjul were there for "sun relaxation and cheap sex."
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Europeans charged over child 'abductions' in Chad
Published Date: October 31, 2007, Kuwait Times

http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MzM5ODQ2Mzkw

ABECHE: Sixteen Europeans charged over the alleged abduction of 103 children sat in a dusty cell in eastern Chad yesterday, as a row escalated in France over the failure to prevent the operation.

Nine French nationals, including six members of the charity Zoe's Ark and three journalists, were charged late Monday with "kidnapping minors" and "fraud" for attempting to fly the children from the Chad-Darfur border to France, prosecutors in the eastern town of Abeche said.

Seven Spanish aircraft crew and two Chadian nationals were charged with complicity. Spain's foreign ministry said it "disagrees" with the charges and would seek the release of its nationals.

An angry mob of several dozen people gathered outside the court house in Abeche, calling the Europeans "thieves, killers", and accusing former colonial power France of being an "accomplice".

An AFP journalist saw the Europeans, in very low sprits, held in a single room in the Abeche court ahead of their transfer to N'Djamena.

The French charity workers were wearing fireman's trousers and t-shirts marked "Children Rescue", the name of their operation. Spanish women among the flight crew fought to hold back tears.

France, which is investigating Zoe's Ark for illegal adoption, denied that the nine had been indicted, saying a prosecutor had only requested charges.

The Europeans were detained Thursday as they prepared to put the children on a chartered flight to France. The children were presented as orphans whose lives were at risk from civil war in Sudan's Darfur province.

The UN children's agency UNICEF said Tuesday it does not yet know for sure if the 103 children are orphans but the French foreign ministry acknowledged that the children were mostly "Chadian, with Chadian parents," not Darfur orphans.

Chadian President Idriss Deby has suggested the group planned to sell the children or "kill them and remove their organs", drawing accusations that he is seeking to whip up public anger for political gain.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has condemned the operation. But his government is under pressure to explain why it allowed the operation to get so far.

Officials say they warned the charity they would be breaking the law, while it has been revealed that French military planes in Chad carried charity members on several occasions.

Le Figaro newspaper reported that a French government official and gendarmes were due to "welcome" the flight carrying the children at an airport east of Paris.

We have got ourselves into an impossible situation and I would like to know exactly what the French authorities' role was," said the former Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius.
It is obvious the French authorities know what goes on in Chad," he said.

In this sorry affair, France has appeared confused, short of decent explanations, incapable of taking proper preventive action. In sum, guilty, at least, of negligence," wrote the influential Le Monde newspaper.

Liberation newspaper said it "cannot doubt the goodwill of the head of Zoe's Ark" and suggested the government was "heaping blame on its compatriots in jail" to "deny its own responsibilities.

France has 1,000 troops and fighter jets stationed in Chad, which is to start hosting a French-led European peacekeeping mission to protest refugee camps on the Darfur border from next month.

Paris says the deployment will not be affected, but experts warn the crisis comes at a critical time.

Eastern Chad is home to some 236,000 refugees from Darfur as well as some 173,000 people displaced by a local rebellion.

Aid workers in Abeche have been trying to piece together the background of the children, aged one to 10, who were to be adopted or fostered by families in France each paying 2,800 to 6,000 euros (4,000 to 8,600 dollars).

Meanwhile, France's foreign minister yesterday slammed a French charity for acting "without rule" after 16 Europeans were arrested in Chad and accused of abducting more than 100 children.

It is not my vision of humanitarian action to act without rule ... in a country which is not ours," Bernard Kouchner told AFP in Bangkok, where he met Thai officials over the political crisis in Myanmar.

Nor is it my vision of humanitarian action to attack the government for wrong reasons," he added.

The seven Spanish crew of the aircraft and two Chadian nationals were charged with complicity to kidnapping.

The Europeans were arrested Thursday as they prepared to put the children, presented as orphans whose lives were at risk from civil war in Sudan's western province of Darfur, on a chartered flight to France.

The French government, which says it warned the charity it risked breaking the law, is also under pressure to explain why it failed to stop the operation, and why French army planes in Chad carried charity members on several occasions.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, eager to limit the diplomatic fallout with an important African ally, has condemned the operation as "illegal and unacceptable.

Non-governmental organisations are not governmental and, fortunately, they are free but sometimes it is unfortunate also," said Kouchner, who was reluctant to speak on the subject and said his priority here was Myanmar. "I will say more when I will know the details of the case. I know some but not enough." - Agencies

(See also:Two Quebecers arrested for sexual assaults on minors in Haiti orphanage, French Aid Workers Sentenced and French Aid Workers Charged with kidnapping scheme in Chad
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Gambia retrains "bumsters" to shake sex tourism tag
By Rose Skelton | May 24, 2006, Reuters

FAJARA, Gambia (Reuters) - The young Gambian man in the yellow string vest calls out to a European woman walking along a wide golden beach shrouded in a fine sea mist.

"Hey nice lady! Nice lady, I want to talk to you," he yells. She keeps walking.

"It's nice to be nice," he grumbles as he returns to his friends, his matted hair escaping from his cap.

The young man is one of Gambia's "bumsters," youths who offer to walk with tourists as they visit markets and beaches in this tiny West African nation and who fend off the attentions of rivals for a small fee.

What is left unsaid but understood is the possibility of a more intimate relationship, that could be a ticket, however temporary, out of poverty.

A week-long relationship could mean three hot meals a day for the Gambian man and a luxury hotel bed to sleep in, plus money for beer or cigarettes.

"I experienced one time when there was a young boy who was trying to get me to his house for 'the real Gambian Experience' as they call it," said Wilma, 35, from the Netherlands.

"It was very hard to get rid of him. Yes, he was trying to sell himself," said Wilma, who did not want to give her surname.

In many African countries, it is common to see older white men with young local black women, but Gambia, along with some resorts in neighboring Senegal, has earned a name as a place for older European women to meet young African men.

Now a British hotel manager is working to get the bumsters off the beaches and into legitimate jobs in order to improve Gambia's image.

OLDER WOMEN
Precise numbers for the sex tourism industry are hard to get. A 2003 report by UNICEF said 60-70 percent of visitors to one of the main tourist areas near the capital Banjul were there for "sun relaxation and cheap sex."

Flights from Britain regularly arrive with a high proportion of women traveling alone, often visiting younger Gambian men they met on previous visits.

A lasting relationship can mean continued financial support -- invaluable in a country ranked as one of the 25 poorest in the world -- and, if all goes well, a visa to live in Europe.

For European women, it is a chance to have a young and potentially attractive holiday companion.

But for those not interested in a liaison with a local man, being approached in this way can be unpleasant -- and that was what spurred British hotelier Geri Mitchell to create jobs for the men annoying her guests.

Mitchell, 52, who manages The Safari Garden Hotel, a leafy oasis in the Fajara beach area near Banjul, selected a group of young men and sent them to train as tourist guides.

They now charge tourists a set rate of 30 Dalasi ($1) an hour or 50 Dalasi ($1.75) for a one-off trip. The hotel offers them a formal introduction to the guests.

The project, which built on a previous government initiative to train reformed bumsters as guides, has provided much needed financial relief to Lamine Bojang, a guide in his mid-20s.

Bojang's father died when he was young and so he is the family's chief earner, and he has to pay his siblings' school fees.

"In my family, I play a big role," he said.

Before becoming guides, Bojang and his friends used to collect firewood in the forest and sell it to make ends meet.

Now, they say, they are able to make a basic living and they have earned the respect of the hotel and its guests.

SETTING AN EXAMPLE
Part of the guides' training involves learning how to recognize and report sex tourism involving an underage person.

The majority of prostitutes in the tourist area near Banjul where the guides work, are underage, with some as young as 12, according to the UNICEF report.

The U.N. agency has also said it is concerned the former British colony is increasingly becoming a destination for sex tourists as countries in southeast Asia take steps to shake off their image as havens for pedophiles.

Mitchell said the tourist guides also help monitor sex tourism.

"That's a message that we really want to get out to sex tourists: Don't come, because everybody is out there and taking responsibility for what's going on," she said.
Rachel, 25, traveled alone from Britain to Gambia for a vacation and praised efforts to deal with the bumsters.

"I just think the worst thing about the Gambia is that you can't step outside of your hotel for a minute without being hassled. I think the Gambia would be a much better place without that. I think official tour guides are probably the best way of doing that," she said.
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