Coordinated efforts cutting through the red tape of diplomacy is needed to nab travelling paedophiles, many of whom get away owing to procedural delays, a British activitst said.
Christine Beddoe, a UK-based campaigner, who is presently serving as Special Adviser on children to the British Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Modern Slavery Bill said that global sharing of data, as well as international databases would go a long way in tracking them as they run from the law.
"The paedophiles have a network among themselves which supports them, there is no reason why law enforcement agencies and others should not work out a similar global mechanism to bring child sex abusers to justice," said Beddoe.
Beddoe, was among the many activists campaigning in the UK for the deportation of Raymond Varley, 66, a British teacher who faces child sex abuse charges in Goa and is accused of being part of a paedophilia ring. The ring, among others included the infamous Freddy Peats, who abused more than 150 children in the late 1980s here posing as good natured foreign missionaries.
She said that child sex abusers often exploit loopholes and red tape to escape the law or take advantage of diplomatic procedures and the lack of common criminal databases to escape again and again. She cited the Varley case as an example.
Varley was an associate of Freddy Peats, who headed one of the first known Western paedophile rings in India. Varley and other associates abused hundreds of children at an orphanage operated by Peats in a south Goa beach village. When the racket was busted in 1991, Varley disappeared and continued to travel freely despite an Interpol alert was issued by Indian authorities against him.
"When he was caught by the Thai authorities (in 2012), he was deported to the UK and not India, which had issued the Interpol alert," Beddoe said. India's efforts to extradite Varley from UK for trial here met with a set back after a UK court ruled in the accused paedophile's favour after he claimed he had dementia and would therefore was in need of healthcare.
ECPAT research shows that in 2011-12 alone 66 UK British nationals were held for child abuse abroad, while in the tally UK nationals accused of child sex crimes abroad over the last five years was 293.
"In 2008-09 alone there were 33 cases in which UK nationals accused of child sex abuse abroad were associated with teaching positions," Beddoe said, adding that child sex predators targeted orphanages, schools and other areas where children were likely to frequent. Some of the favoured overseas destinations for British sex offenders were Romania, Bulgaria, India, Philippines, Thailand, etc. including 'developed' countries like Spain and Portugal.