This Past Summer I Worked for Beyond Borders, the Canadian Affiliate of ECPAT (End Child

David Thompson- Second Year Beyond Borders (Toronto)

This past summer I worked for Beyond Borders, a Canadian NGO dedicated to advancing the rights of children to be free from abuse and exploitation. It is made up entirely of volunteers and is based in Winnipeg, but has a Toronto chapter. Beyond Borders has affiliate status with ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) International, which is based in Bangkok. ECPAT was started in the early 1990s as a campaign to end child prostitution in Asian tourism and evolved into a global network of organizations in 67 countries, all dedicated to eliminating the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Most of the work I did this summer consisted of independent research and writing, but I was in regular contact with a supervising lawyer and the president of the organization. In early May I was brought up to speed on child sexual exploitation issues by attending the CILP and Microsoft Symposium on Online Child Exploitation at our school, and then by participating in the Canadian Mid-Term Review of the 2nd World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Windsor. At both conferences I met with representatives of international and Canadian NGOs working in related fields, law enforcement officials, researchers and leading academics.

After this I felt well-equipped to begin researching on these issues. My initial project was to assist a Beyond Borders lawyer in background research for an intervention in R. v. Bakker, which was to be the first test case for the extraterritoriality of Canada’s child sex tourism law. However, Bakker ended up pleading guilty so this became unnecessary.

Initially disappointed that I wouldn’t have a chance to work on this case, I rebounded quickly and set to work on another interesting project. Beyond Borders advocates that foreign travel restrictions should be placed on dangerous sexual offenders. A lawyer in the group gave me the idea to research the feasibility of enacting such a law in Canada and how it would conform to the Charter. I felt this was the logical next step to working on the child sex tourism issue and concerning Bakker in particular. Bakker was convicted of brutally sexually abusing 7-to-12 year old girls in Cambodia. For this (as well as other sexual crimes committed in Canada) he received a prison sentence of 7 years. I wanted to address the question of what happens when Bakker is released and felt it was obvious that, barring complete rehabilitation, he should not be permitted to travel back to Cambodia to abuse children there.

The research was very eye-opening for me. After a lot of digging through legislation and phone calls to government officials and the RCMP, I found out that there are virtually no travel restrictions placed on convicted sex offenders. Once they have completed their sentence they have virtual complete freedom to travel anywhere. This seemed to me like a huge legislative void, considering that child sex offenders have high rates of recidivism and that they often travel to developing countries to prey on poor, vulnerable children.

The next step was to find out what other countries restrict the foreign travel of their convicted sex offenders, and for this I communicated with embassy officials and NGOs from many different countries. This started a debate in certain ECPAT organizations about whether it would be possible to enact such legislation in their respective countries. I found out that the U.K. and Australia have very strict legislation in this area, ranging from requiring detailed notification of travel plans for trips longer than 2 days to outright passport removal.

Finally, I looked into whether such a law would conform to our Charter, and considered what possible challenges might be brought against it. I really enjoyed being able to put what I had learned in Constitutional Law into practice. I determined that a modified version of the U.K. law would work in Canada. All of this culminated in a policy paper that will be used in the near future to lobby the government to address this topic. Next I began work on a series of fact sheets outlining child sexual exploitation issues in Canada and what reforms are needed in these areas. This included such topics as “Loopholes in the National Sex Offender Registry” and “Canada’s Abuser-friendly Age of Consent.” Besides simply reading up on these, I was able to speak with a few front-line workers and volunteers who are fighting to protect children and youth from sexual exploitation. This helped me to put a more human face on some of these problems.

Beyond Borders presented the fact sheets in September at an international ECPAT assembly in Brazil, as well as in October at the Toronto Police Sex Crimes Conference. At both conferences they were very well received and have helped to educate national and international delegates on what reforms are needed in Canada. The fact sheets are also posted on www.beyondborders.org.

In addition to these two main projects, I worked on many other smaller tasks such as preparing a summary for airline officials on child sex tourism to gain their cooperation in educating passengers on Canada’s extraterritorial laws. I also did some research into Ontario’s sex offender registry to help determine whether we might attempt to intervene in a challenge to it.

While it was frustrating to read about the extent to which children in Canada and abroad are sexually abused, I was very encouraged by the work being done at a grassroots level by Beyond Borders and other NGOs. I became a lot less cynical about the possibilities that exist for achieving legislative reform and the impact you can have after one year of law school.

Even though I didn’t get to travel anywhere really exciting during the summer (except Windsor), I’m really glad I chose this to do this and I’m very thankful for the opportunity. I’m continuing to volunteer with Beyond Borders and I have a feeling that I might stick with this issue in some way or another throughout my career. I’d be happy to speak with anyone interested in getting involved in this field of human rights.