Dear Editor,

The children of any nation are its most prized possession/assets. It is therefore every parent’s responsibility to do everything possible to protect his/her children from danger. Moreover, it is also the moral imperative of all Civil, Social, Religious and Govt authorities/ officials to be able to foresee potential harmful situations and to take preventative actions. I speak particularly of our children in the interior of Guyana, or those outside the areas of regular pubic scrutiny by the media, politicians, and officials.

The current Guyanese situation (corruption, lax laws and poor enforcement, easy bribery of officials, dire poverty, and pervasive crime) that drives away a lot of decent tourists attracts and allows a small percentage of undesirables (local and foreign) to commit indecent acts, without any chance of penalty. These undesirables are paedophiles and/or sexual predators. They are a tiny percentage of the tourist traffic, but they wreak havoc on their young victims, families, and society. They can no longer get away so easily with their actions in the developed countries, so they target the children (girls and boys) of the developing countries.

They have committed their foul deeds in the usual tourist hotspots in Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Kenya, etc. Earlier these men could not be charged for any act committed against children overseas, now places like Canada have a law that any act against children in any country of the world is an indictable offence in Canada. However, most of the perpetrators of these acts are never prosecuted. The international child agencies (e.g. UNICEF) in a collaborative effort have been putting the spotlight on the problem. The heat is on these men; hence they are now moving to less sophisticated or more na