Child Sex Tourism

Todd Herman: Defending children, in America what do children need defense from?

Andrew Vachss: There’s really no difference between our country and any other country. There’s just a difference as to intensity and method, but children need protection here from exploitation and abuse the same way they do in other countries. It’s just the ways in which it happens here differs from other countries.

Herman: Let’s start with some of the ways it happens here. How are children being exploited here?

Vachss: In America they are exploited the same way as anyplace else; that is, they are used as products. So whether it is so-called child prostitution,—a misnomer because it’s actually prostituted children—whether they are used for the entertainment for others, whether they are used to earn money for others, or simply as part of a very bad script in which people play out their own anger and their own viciousness and their own evil using children as a target, it comes down to the same for the child. So whether the child is emotionally abused or killed; the child as a victim is not only a terrible immoral thing, but it’s something we end up paying for. Basically you’d have to be an idiot to think that there’s a biogenetic code for ‘serial killer’ or an arsonist that giggles at the flame. We make our monsters and build our own beasts, and we’ve been doing it for a very long time.

Herman: How prevalent in America is child pornography? It’s a nebulous term. A lot a people think it is very rare.

Vachss: To understand child pornography, you have to understand a number of things. But the most important thing is that the issue is depth, not width. So one pedophile, if he or she had the resources, would happily consume all the child pornography in the world. Child pornography, unlike, say, cocaine, doesn’t get diluted by use, so if you have a single pornography video tape it can be duplicated endlessly. So if you’re trying to get a count, it’s not like counting an organic product, the answer is… nobody actually knows. That’s the only truthful answer. But certainly you can obtain it just about anywhere.

Herman: What sort of cases have you been involved in?

Vachss: I can’t think of any kind of case I haven’t done. From children so emotionally abused that they’ve attempted suicide to children who were made to star in the most violent, horrible pornographic videos that resulted in their permanent disfigurement. I’ve dealt with children that have been killed, children that have been sold. Basically, if you can close you’re eyes and think of any horrible event that could take place between human beings, I’ve probably had that kind of case.

Herman: And you take these to court in what sense, criminal court, civil court?

Vachss: All of the courts actually. We’ve done everything from cases in which incest victims have sued their own perpetrators to criminal cases where the facsimiles of human beings of tortured children have been prosecuted to the sort of mixture between the two of them, which is a case in which you proceed against parents for the torture of their own children. Trying to separate the children from the parents.

Herman: How specific can you get in a particular case? Salt Lake has not heard about this before, it’s just not talked about. Can you give us a specific case that you’ve dealt with, so we can put into perspective where people can exactly get an idea of what this is?

Vachss: Sure. Do you want a typical case? A median case?

Herman: Well you can shock us, or… yeah what is typical?

Vachss: The most typical case… is people that abuse their own children out of their own inadequacy, so I wouldn’t want to mislead you. The overwhelming percentage of cases we deal with are cases in which people simply don’t know how to be parents. So they beat their children, or they starve their child or they emotionally abuse their children. They do this for a great variety of reasons, but we found in cases like that, so-called rehabilitation can be enormously effective. That’s most of the cases. A very small percentage of cases involve parents who are actually mentally ill. The woman who put her child in the oven and baked the child because she wanted to bake the devil out of the child. A person who actually removed the child’s hands because they actually believed that the child’s hands were evil. That kind of insanity. It’s relatively rare. But the percentage of cases that concerns us most are people who are evil. That’s people who hurt their own children for pleasure or for profit or for both. Those are the cases in which every dollar you spend on rehabilitation is a dollar wasted.

Herman: Can you tell us a case where someone is exploiting a child for economic gain?

Vachss: There’s an endless number of cases where people literally traffic in their children, as though their children were a profit. So what they do is rent their children out to people for sexual purposes. They produce videos, right in home, because, you see, technology has advanced enormously. When I was a young man if, God forbid, if you wanted to be in the kiddie porn business, you needed a whole network of confederates. But now any degenerate can walk into a video store, come out with a camera and produce a product that he or she can sell. The most common kind of exploitation we see is people that not only torture their own children sexually, but allow others to do so. That’s where the money comes in.

Herman: That’s common?

Vachss: I don’t know what you mean by common.

Herman: I don’t know what I mean either. How often do you see it?

Vachss: Much more than any human being should. It’s actually emetic to say that one such case is too many. But there is a thriving market in the sexual exploitation of children and I don’t believe that’s disputable. You wouldn’t have a whole country that adds to it’s Gross National Product with the sexual exploitation of children if it wasn’t a fact of life.

Herman: Thailand. Is it worse in our country? Or is it even safe to say that is an understatement?

Vachss: No, I think that it’s fair to say that it’s worse because unlike this country, where at least the above-ground government disapproves of it to the extent we have laws against it and there is enforcement, Thailand actually uses the sexual exploitation of children as a source of revenue. And all aspects of government share in it.

Herman: And the government actually then is aware of the activity and has not made it illegal?

Vachss: The prime minister of Thailand has been quoted publicly as saying that this industry has been institutionalized in this country and although quote “they are making their best efforts”, unquote they’ve been unable to stem the tide.

Herman: Thailand actually promotes it’s gross domestic product and has economic growth by sexually exploiting children. I’m just going to stand back and let you explain what is going on in Thailand.

Vachss: Essentially, what Thailand has done—and this has been over approximately a thirty year period—is set up the sexual exploitation of children as a tourist attraction. There isn’t a pedophile in the world doesn’t know that Thailand is a safe harbor. It’s a place where you can actually have sexual access to babies for money and it’s so institutionalized that enforcement — and I use the word sneeringly—is a joke. Prosecution is almost unheard of, in fact, it’s such a grotesque horrible problem that numerous countries, including the Scandinavian countries, Germany, Australia have passed what is called extra territorial laws. So they can prosecute their own citizens for sex crimes committed against children in Thailand. This is a damning, damning thing and it is a clear statement internationally that Thailand is going to do nothing about it.

Herman: The Thailand tourism authority promoted a trip to a town called Pattaya. Thailand’s major sex resort. Here’s how they promoted this. “If you can suck it, use it, feel it, eat it, taste it, abuse it or see it, then it’s available in this resort that truly never sleeps. Pattaya is not for prudes.” Tell us about the town of Pattaya?

Vachss: Pattaya is also called Baby Beach. It’s not unique in Thailand, although it’s one of the most infamous places. The bottom line is this: You can simply buy access to children. There are ads, explicit ads, that promise you not only children, but promise you virgins, promise you infants, promise you literally whatever you want. Promise you complete immunity from prosecution. And literally set the prices. There are tours which consist solely of people who are going to Thailand to sexually molest and rape children. Period. And nobody denies this. This is one of those rare social horrors where the facts are not in dispute.

Herman: Is it illegal in Thailand to have sex with a child?

Vachss: It depends on what you mean by a child. Thailand’s laws are very murky because they keep changing. At one time there was absolutely no law involving age of “consent” for male children period. So it would not be illegal to have sex with a two-year-old if you could say that the two-year-old “consented”. Now, how a child who is sold into prostitution by its parents gets to consent to anything is beyond me.

Herman: So, how is it these kids are put into this situation?

Vachss: Essentially they are sold, although some are kidnapped. What happens is the parents are told, sometimes bluntly, “Your child is going to be a prostitute”, but most often they’re told, “The child will be an indentured servant”. In other words, we’re going to lend you, the parents, a certain amount of money and when the child works off the debt, the child will be returned to you. Needless to say the children are never returned.

Herman: For Americans hearing this for the first time, and in Salt Lake this is the first time: The first time I heard this from Clyde Lewis (my producer) I was in a state of disbelief.

Vachss: Well you can ask Clyde Lewis. Clyde Lewis has a relative who was a missionary in Thailand.

Herman: We understand that. I’m not doubting you. I’ve read the reports now. But we need to understand something: Are Americans involved in this? And in what way are they?

Vachss: Americans are involved primarily as tourists, which is direct perverted consumers of this atrocity, but we’re also involved in it as any person is involved in it. Because every time we buy a product made in Thailand, we support a government which does this, just as when we trafficked with goods made in South Africa we supported apartheid. And the boycott which helped bring apartheid down is the same sort of boycott we’re looking for of goods made in Thailand, for an even higher calling.

Herman: Which is to stop this. And if we boycott them, you believe we can be successful in stopping the child sex trade.

Vachss: They are selling their babies for money my friend. And money is what’s driving them. If you strangle them economically, they will do the right thing. Will they do it for the wrong reasons? Of course. Are we going to reform people morally? Of course not. But we can, absolutely, cut off the money stream. And if we do that.. then they’ll have to stop the traffic.

Herman: Everything we’ve talked about is an absolute atrocity, but Clyde told me for a fee that you can kill a child?

Vachss: I don’t know if that’s true. What I have in the book (BATMAN: THE ULTIMATE EVIL) is a completely factual, fully sourced, fully documented report on the situation in Thailand. I don’t know for a fact and I can’t tell you for a fact that you can kill a child for money. However you can purchase a child for money and walk away and no one is going to ask you what you did with that child.

Herman: You can walk away? You buy the child and own the child?

Vachss: Well, you rent the child and if you don’t return the child you just pay the deposit. That’s all.

Herman: And this is just business as usual?

Vachss: It’s been business as usual for Thailand, and not exclusively in Thailand, I want you to understand. This is also in the Philippines and many other countries. But Thailand is the big beast. Thailand has been the international symbol of child sexual exploitation for decades.

Herman: NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association). They are of the belief that men should be allowed to have sex and sexual relations with young boys. And they believe it should be legal and are lobbying for that change. Andrew, I don’t want to anger you, but when they called, they said to “Send you their love.”

Vachss: They call themselves the North American Man Boy Love Association, but you understand love for them, means sexual assault on children. You understand that their love for children is the same as maybe your love for a good steak. It’s a product that they consume. When you say young boys, I don’t know if your listeners understand that term to mean… It doesn’t mean 15 year old boys, it means children, period. NAMBLA takes the position that children can “consent” to sex, period. And there should be no laws protecting children against sexual exploitation, period. When they say they give their love to me, we understand our relationship. They’ve hated me for many, many years. They hate what I do and what I stand for. I’m proud of the hatred.

Herman: They’re actually promoting no laws protecting children from sex by adults. Any child, right?

Vachss: Absolutely.

Herman: Now their connection to the Thailand sex industry is what?

Vachss: Except as perverted consumers, they’re certainly not part of the Thai government. However, in the most infamous case I know of, a school teacher in New York City was discovered to be a member of NAMBLA. In defending himself, he went on to say that “I never have sex with boys in this country” and then he went on to brag about kiddie sex tourism. For NAMBLA, Thailand is the promised land. Thailand is Valhalla, Thailand is the place where every one of their evil fantasies is reality.

Herman: NAMBLA, in promoting having sex with children, has actually made available travel packages to Thailand.

Vachss: Travel packages to Thailand are endemic. They’re common! You can actually pull stuff off the Internet that will make you lose your lunch. You can pull stuff off that says “We promise you a virgin”. A virgin girl in this case. Although NAMBLA is exclusively interested in little boys, there are pedophiles that are exclusively interested in little girls. And some, frankly, that don’t care what the sex of the victim is. Nobody had less love for NAMBLA than me, but I would never say that NAMBLA is the major promoter for kiddie sex tourism to Thailand. There are millions of people that benefit and there all kinds of people in that game.

Herman: Should the U.S. send in troops to put a stop to the “Kiddie Sex Trade” in Thailand?

Vachss: I’m not a believer that military war solves very much. It gets a lot of people killed. Economic war on the other hand, has a chance to win. If you accept the fact that they are selling the babies for money. Money is what drives them. If we choke off that money stream, they will have to stop doing what they did. If we went over there militarily we would have to permanently stay there because right now a government culture has evolved which says that children are like wheat, children are like rice or opium, a product that you sell, which has no feelings or rights of it’s own.

The key to salvation for literally millions of exploited children… if people would simply say, DON’T! BUY! THAI! and live that rhetoric. Unlike any other social movement, no one is being asked to contribute a penny. You don’t have to make a phone call, you don’t have to march, you don’t have to carry a sign, just don’t do something. Make the moral decision not to do something and you literally save children’s lives. That’s a pretty enticing proposition from where I sit and if everyone could make that DON’T! BUY! THAI! commitment, we would beat them.

Thailand stands as an international symbol for the sexual exploitation and torture of children. We don’t need to watch it and wring our hands and shed our tears; there is actually something we can do about it. The simple moral commitment to DON’T! BUY! THAI! will literally save children from the worst fate imaginable. You can literally pull children out of hell, and you have to decide—each and every one of you—if its worth it for you to do that.

Herman: Thank you for your time today Andrew. I look forward to having you on the program again, and I’ll be telling everyone: DON’T! BUY! THAI!

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