/* */

PDA

View Full Version : what's going on in Gambia? Sexual Tourism



جوري
06-03-2012, 04:54 PM
On a hot Wednesday evening local children gather by a mango tree in the sandy backstreets of Bijilo, close by Gambia's main tourist drag on the West African country's Atlantic coast. A generator thumps a little way off to power a projector and on a fabric screen a film plays in which a young girl is groomed by an older man with a gift of a mobile phone. Later she is raped.
After the screening Samba Njie, youth co-ordinator with the Child Protection Alliance, a Gambian NGO in partnership with the British development agency ChildHope – one of the charities supported by this year's Independent Appeal – addresses the young audience.
"Now we are getting to the tourist season," he says, speaking in the local Wolof language. "There are some tourists who come here to abuse young children. Whether we accept it or not, it happens," he adds.
Tiny Gambia, a former British colony surrounded inland by former French possession Senegal, has a complicated relationship with the West.
Package holidaymakers arrived in the 1970s and blessed by a GMT time zone, easy flight connections from Europe and a stable political climate the winter sun industry blossomed.
Today over 100,000 tourists arrive each year and in 2008 travel and tourism provided 17.9 per cent of GDP and 89,000 jobs, 14.4 per cent of the country's total employment.
But there is a darker side to the annual influx of "toubabs", as westerners are known. The Gambia has become a target for unscrupulous tourists looking for sex with children.
"Men like younger girls," said Ahmed Jegan Loum, national co-ordinator of the Sex Workers Intervention Project, a local organisation that works with prostitutes. "Europeans come here to see young girls who are not too involved in sex." Very young boys can be seen approaching tourists and offering an under age "sister", promising she is a virgin.
"It's just an adventure for them," added the local chief, Abdoulie Joof, in Kololi, an area dominated by beach resorts. "They want to experience young girls. Some of them are homosex[ual], they go in for the boys."
Campaigners believe that since Asian countries tightened up their regulations men wanting sex with children turned their attention to destinations like the Gambia.
"At that time we found it was relatively new and coming up fast," explained Mireille Bijnsdorp, who has conducted one of the few in-depth investigations into the subject, for the NGO Terre des Hommes. "There was a feeling, this was a new issue for the country."
Despite the risk of trauma, Aids and ruined marriage prospects, for many young Gambian women prostitution appears to be an aspirational lifestyle choice. "Many girls envy them and would like to get such opportunities no matter what happens," said 16-year-old Yamai Jobe.
"Some would like to step into their shoes to get the same benefits." A girl of 12 saw her friend with a mobile phone and asked her how she got it. "At the beach," said her friend, so she went herself the next day and asked a tourist for a mobile. She was raped in the bushes and left with some coins.
Campaigners say that "sponsoring a child" has become a vehicle for abusers to gain access to underage sex. Tourists typically offer to pay for a year's schooling, for them only the cost of an expensive meal, in exchange for a relationship.
A night walk through the Senegambia tourist strip reveals middle-aged white men in ill-advised shorts sitting at al fresco tables with African girls half their age. A pair of balding European lotharios drive past in a jeep, the rear seats jammed with young black women. Elsewhere, Gambian youths with dreadlocks and imitated South London accents squire wobbly white women old enough to be their mothers.
Many parents regard the exhibition of their offspring to holiday makers as an "opportunity" rather than a threat. It is in this environment that the Child Protection Alliance does its work. An umbrella body founded in 2001, the CPA co-ordinates NGOs and other bodies involved in child protection issues.
"It was founded to fill a gap," said Njundu Drammeh, the Alliance's national co-ordinator. "At the time CPA was founded there was no child rights organisation in the Gambia."
The alliance's work is reflected in legislation. The Gambia passed a Tourism Offences Act in 2003, followed by a Children's Act two years later. The local police have also set up a child protection unit, while hotels are signatories to a code of conduct.
"We are not trying to look on everyone as a suspect, but we have systems in place," said Memunatu Junisa, human resources manager at the Kairaba Beach Hotel. "You come in with the child? Who is that child? What is the relationship?"
ChildHope's support for the Gambian CPA is a new venture, set up this year. "We partner with an organisation because we believe in their issues," said Allan Kiwanuka, ChildHope's partnerships and programmes manager for Africa.
An unfortunate consequence of increased vigilance has been to force prostitution into smaller guesthouses and even private houses.
Faced by these challenges the Child Protection Alliance has introduced a series of neighbourhood watch groups, comprising adults and children, which report suspicious goings-on to the authorities.
"They go places where these things are happening," explained youth leader Mam Jobe. "They disguise themselves as an innocent party, watching out." Yet, despite the legislatives measures and the work of CPA, prosecutions for the abuse of children in the Gambia remain few and far between and a culture of silence – known as "maslaha" – prevails. What makes combating this more difficult is that in Gambian culture even mentioning sex is taboo and children are not allowed to complain about adults. If a child is abused, it is rarely reported. The staff of the Child Protection Alliance are clear about what needs to be done and that includes breaking the silence.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...m-2164853.html


I just saw this & was surprised. I am surprised they're Muslims.. I saw it first on Al Jazeera speaking of elderly European women of advanced age going to Gambia to fulfill their needs :hmm:
Reply

Login/Register to hide ads. Scroll down for more posts
Abz2000
06-03-2012, 04:59 PM
hmmmmm, mobile phones for sexual favours,
she would've been better off giving it to the Mujahideen there who could establish shariah and kill rapists
Reply

aadil77
06-04-2012, 12:24 AM
Lets the malian rebels work there way down to gambia, they'll deal with them
Reply

Txyib
06-04-2012, 02:32 AM
salam

INNA LILLAH HE WA INNAH ELAYHE RAJE'OON

YA ALLAH ,YA RABB GUIDE THE MUSLIMS TO THE STRAIGHT PATH
Bismillāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīmAl ḥamdu lillāhi rabbi l-'ālamīnAr raḥmāni r-raḥīmMāliki yawmi d-dīnIyyāka na'budu wa iyyāka nasta'īnIhdinā ṣ-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīmṢirāṭ al-laḏīna an'amta 'alayhim ġayril maġḍūbi 'alayhim walāḍ ḍāllīn Translation: [Quran 1:1].
In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
The Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.
The Lord of the Day of Judgement.
Thee alone do we worship and Thee alone we seek for help.
Guide us to the Right Path.
The path of those upon whom Thou has bestowed favors, Not of those who Thou has cursed once nor of those who have gone astray.
YA ALLAH LET THE MUSLIMS REALISE WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS INCORRECT AND THEY WILL GET PUNISHED YA ALLAH PLEASE GUIDE THE UMMAH ,YA ALLAH GUIDE ME AND THE UMMAH to the straight path:exhausted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov4cTTUUA8g
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Reply

Hey there! Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.

When you create an account, you can participate in the discussions and share your thoughts. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and make new friends.
Sign Up
British Wholesales - Certified Wholesale Linen & Towels | Holiday in the Maldives

IslamicBoard

Experience a richer experience on our mobile app!