Info on reporting sex crimes and exploitation of minors to DAS:

This information was Posted on Poor But Happy but as the posts there tend to get lost after a while, the poster sent me the information again. If anyone knows of similar numbers for other countries, especially child sex-tourism and human trafficking hotspots, please sent me this and i will post it here in a kind of directory. Cheers.

For Colombia...

Call the DAS with info at 4088000 ext. 3417
Let's do everything we can to prevent Colombia becoming another Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia or Costa Rica....

In Antioquia:

Medellín (Seccional)
Calle 19 No.80A 40
Tel: 340 22 01
email: secantadm@das.gov.co
Servicios: Asuntos Migratorios
Horario: 08:00 a las 11: 00 horas y de las 14:00a las 16:00 horas

Apartado (Puesto Operativo)
Calle 95 No.97-06
Tel: 828 20 30 / 8281394
Servicios: Identificación
Horario: 07:30 a las 12: 00 horas y 14:00 a 18:00 horas

Turbo (Puesto de Control Migratorio)
Wafe Naval Turbo
Tel: 8 27 38 15

Capurgana (Puesto de Control Migratorio)
Cabaña La Caprichosa
Tel: 824 38 38

Rionegro (Puesto de Control Migratorio)
Aeropuerto Jose Maria Córdoba
Tel: 562 29 03

Postive Mail this week:

A female poster on PBH wrote to me this week with a private message...

... Just had an eye on the discussion that´s been going around on your blog and on poorbuthappy, and just wanna tell you how well you are dealing with, I´m impressed by how calm you seem to be, having to cope with so much stupidity. I guess I shouldn´t be surprised over the fact that so many men react this way to your opinions, but still, it´s devastating that many of them keep the level so low and don't even try to understand. Haven´t read all of their stuff, but the parts I read are just depressing. But, what I wanna say, is just that you are handling the discussion so good, and that women like you are gives so much hope.

Thanks for that! It's always great to get something in my mailbox which doesn't involve the bitchy comments from my anti-fan club. :D

Essentially, we all hold different opinions about prostitution and morality.

Different opinions are the diversity we should celebrate during discussion.

The trouble is some of these guys don't want to discuss, having to discussing things may
involve having to use the brain, and many since arriving in Colombia, have had their thinking processes taken over by another, considerably smaller, part of their bodies. My comments were met though with a fair amount of linguistic violence - everything from offering to deal with my "sexual frustration", suggesting a gangbang, and telling me that they wanted to slit my throat for my "heretical remarks" (This from someone who accused me of "intolerance".)
Heretical?

Why stop at wanting to "slit my throat?".

Why not burning at the stake or stoningin the market place. There are time-honoured traditions of getting rid of troublesome women.

If asking for justice be heresy, then I must be careful with those matches.

I imply that American guys in Colombia are "all" paedophiles....

Mr Podrowski writes (and I'm trying hard not to role my eyes here).

[Carita writes ] some mumbo jumbo about having relative economic advantage or objectifying women or having certain 'motivations' that she knows about even though no one else seems to. For having accused (insinuated, implied) that folks here are committing serious crimes or the 'equivalent', I'd say it sounds like you don't get much hate mail at all.

Still on about the are we? Again, and again and again, I didn't accuse or imply anything of the sort. If I think that you are committing a serious crime, I will call interpol. People who commit serious crimes shouldn't approached by members of the public - on or off line. The proper course of action is to call the cops. Isn't that right?

At no point, ever, did I say, or imply, that any PBH member was a paedophile. What I said was that the practice of coming down to Colombia to seduce local women was a form of sex tourism, along with other forms of sex tourism, (such as paedophilia, and that if you wanted to be thought of as a good man, you shouldn't keep bad company. Obviously, in spite of having been told this many times by men, and several times by moderators at PBH Mr. Podrowski likes to repeat this ad nauseum - but its preferable for him to persist in this stupid, deliberate misrepresentation than to engage in proper debate.

As for mumbo jumbo: is he going to call into question the serious, neutral academic studies in the fields of anthropology, law and international development, the concerns of numerous independent NGOs such as Oxfam, Christian Aid, etc, Interpol, and even the Catholic Church. I'd like to say I was the first to point out this obvious, so frigging obvious, problem, but several thousand lawyers, scholars, international organisations, faith-based groups and government departments already got there before me.

Mr Podrowski likes discussing political economy too - I am surprised that he came up with that, from a man who said that Prostitution (a different thing, of course) was purely economics. Of course its about compartive advantage, or you don't know your David Riccardo and Adam Smith. As for objectifying women, I submit to you, sir, that men have being objectifying women since Adam first saw Eve and said "Stand back, darling, I don't know how big this thing gets".

Why this blog exists...

Liza writes

All those arguments and looooooooooong posts....hummmm. I can only wonder???!!!

Well, I have reason. But you are right to wonder. Here's why.

I'm sorry if you find this post too long, but you should remember I am replying to several people at once. And not all are as reasonable as you, Liza.

Its like this. Since Pariah has outed himself I have no problem mentioning his name. He is by no means the first though.

He writes to me with several paragraphs of hate and one valid point worthy of discussion. He then turns off his PM facility. Now, its possible that his PM facility was turned off by accident, but, after reading that he wanted to personally slit my throat on principle I was somewhat disinclined to believe the best of him. So I answered his valid points - and SOME of his insults (omitting the throat slitting and a couple of other comments for neutrality's sake) on my blog and posted the link here. Publicly. And I invited my detractors to come and meet me, in public, but off site (since they clearly want to discuss things which are not on the topic of Colombia). Now he's here, whining because I placed a PM discussion in the public domain. Not my problem. His problem.

The best way to meet bullying is to come right out and tackle it. Cowardice, you see, being the order of the day. They throw down the gauntlet but I name the time and the place and they back out like the cowards that they are.

Now I'll give you an example of Rubito, who is not a coward. Rubito has disagreed with me many times here. But Rubito is a logical, rational, man, so he writes with an "I disagree with such and such of what you said" in private, and agrees that I can publish his comments on my blog if I want, being actually interested in a real discussion. Rubito and I may never see eye to eye on many points, but he has not sent me PM hate mail. He has sent me an argument. Its also clear from his emails he as actually read the substance of my argument properly: not just assumed. He's fairly perceptive, so we should have a good discussion – I'll post the highlights on the blog.

Finally, I don't want to repeat myself. One of the reason why when all this started was that because they continually ignored my arguments (too busy attacking the person) I made the mistake of repeating consistently held views on prostitution , sex tourism, and international marriage brokerage.

The best way is to write this once – my views don't change, and post a link. Those that are interested in discussing the argument or issues will read it. Those who are not will keep on trolling and flaming by PM: incidentally, so far, no more flames by PM. I wonder why THAT could be? Tell you what, I'm in generous mood. If anyone else receives hate mail from PBH posters, forward it to me and I'll pin it up in the hall of shame with my comments. They will stop. Eventually.

Essentially, I don't cast pearls before swine. Instead, lets see how many times the gentlemen sling ad nauseum the lables of leftist, feminazi, bitter man-hater around. So much more fun than actually applying the brain God gave them (I predict further abuse on grounds of religion very soon).

Prostitution Discussion

Rubito, moderator at ColombiaBlog and someone I frequently lock horns with on PBH, has sent me some rather respectful, thoughtful and insightful emails on the subject of Prostitution, which of course is seperate and distinct from International Marriage Brokerage and Sex Tourism (though it can be linked of course).

He writes:

The one big difference is that in those countries prostitution is illegal, which is what gives the pimps room to work. Legalizing it in Colombia and Brazil not only made the pimp obsolete, it changed the whole demographic of the prostitute as well, attracting a higher class of worker to the industry. It's the same with the drug game, the very illegality of it will attract all the scum of society to it, but no matter how illegal we make it we can't make it not lucrative, as a matter of fact we probably make it MORE lucrative because the illegality increases the risk and difficulty in doing business.

The Tao Teh Ching would say on issues like this to be completely flexible and yielding like water and acheive your goals though non-action and complete serenity and acceptance of the true nature of the universe 8) I dunno if that's too much for your very actively Catholic brain or not, I used to think the same way a good 12 years ago :P But at any rate I don't think your problem is with prostitution per se, it's with exploitation in general. Even if you could figure out an airtight way to prevent any people with a high potential to be exploited from EVER working in prostitution, you would not only still have prostitution, but those people would get exploited in other ways.

Well, well done Rubito, you've blown my "cover" : but please bare in mind that I don't agree with everything the Man in the White Dress says ok? I do have an independent mind...

You are absolutely right that my problem is with injustice: exploitation, of which the standard types of industrialised prostitution is a form. Basically, I few the kind of no-strings sex-on-tap culture to be wrong and damaging ...

...So my view is this. Its wrong, really wrong, for your average Scottish girl to get really drunk on a Friday night and have a one night stand with a complete stranger. If that complete stranger leaves £50 beside her bed as he leaves in the morning, or even if she asks for £50, its the same amount of "wrongness". Its not that "kind" of prostitution I have a problem with per se, (other than distaste for something nasty cold and callous). My problem is when prostitution becomes the only way out for poor women, or the only "feasible" way out. I told a pimp who offered me work sucking dicks as a student to go to hell. A couple of weeks later, facing eviction and an empty fridge, I probably would have said yes. And I lived - then - in the rich north. Now cut to the poor South.

But prostitution exists and will continue to exist - which is why I think we should have tolerance zones and (where needed ) drug rehab centres in the middle of them. Why, like you, I think that a well patrolled tolerance zone will do away with the need for pimps. It won't stop sex slavery or human trafficking - sex slavery is NOT prostitution, or not the same kind away, I prefer to use the word "slavery" or "bonded labour" to describe this. If anything, good tolerance zones will highlight the differences between bonded labour and prostitution.

Women who are bonded labourers are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse. A slave is not a prostitute. Not really. But you should also remember that poverty can bind as much as iron.

Why Sex Tourism Sucks.

Mr Tobasco writes:

Let's differentiate two things. Sex slavery, under-age prostitution and the like are terrible and needs to be prevented for the girls and punished for the guys, period. However, it is a very different thing when you have thirty something housewives working as prepagos in Colombia or 25 year old girls working as factory workers by day and hooking by night in China, Vietnam etc. These girls come up to me and solicit me. I happen to know that there is a whole bunch of freelancers that pays a fee to more respectable clubs to allow them to come in and "hook up". Nobody is forcing them to do this. So let's please make the distinction about the two very different groups. That in fact gets to the point of the issue for me. Stop with the moralistic, judgmental crap you want to lay out there on every guy that has ever paid for it.

So here we ago again. For the nth and last time, I'll lay out why sex tourism sucks. As for being moralistic, dude, when you say human trafficking and child prostitution is wrong you're making a moral judgement. So am I. So bite me in the backside for that one. If what I say makes you - or anyone else uncomfortable (and it does) then good. I want them to think about what they are doing in other countries.

I originally posted on the subject of sex tourism (not prostitution, like you, I believe them to be distinct and separate, although of course, they are blurred at the edges). My objection to sex tourism, (you've not read my posts on this so I'll summarize) is not confined to any one nationality: its wrong to do it, no matter where you are from, and whether you are male or female (women do it too, but gringos are quite uncomfortable about this, so they perfer to say I am a man-hater).

I define Sex Tourism as someone from a relatively richer area/country travelling to a relatively poorer area/country, using their relative wealth, or the perception of wealth to procure cheep or free sexual services from local women, men, or children.

Types of sex tourism include:

• A man travelling to a developing country to seduce or "play" local women, who are not commercial sex workers. (The Male Player).
• A woman travelling to a developing country or a standard tourism destination (such as Spain or Greece) with the intention of having sex with local "exotic" men, who are not commercial sex workers. (The Female Player).
• A Paedophile who travels to a developing country because he has more access to vulnerable, poor children, is less likely to be caught, and if he is caught he has more of a chance of bribing his way out of trouble (The Travelling Paedophile).
• Male and female tourists who travel to other countries to use commercial sex workers of either gender.
  

Sex tourism is distinct from International Marriage brokerage, or mail order brides, although it can overlap. It is also distinct from people who start relationships, or even have sex, while they are travelling in other countries. The mens rea of sex tourism is that the intention - the reason for travelling - is to procure sex. Some forms of sex tourism are not as bad as others, but they all have two things in common: the leverage of relative wealth to procure sexual services, and a real or perceived lack of accountability. Its equally wrong to do it if you are male or female, but the consequences of sex tourism are particularly harsh for women and children in developing countries. This is why I hate it.

The question for my detractors is this: why don't YOU hate it?
For evil to flourish its only necessary that good men (and women, for that matter) do nothing.

Here are just some of the reasons why sex tourism is bad:

• All countries which have a problem with sex tourism also have problems with industrialised prostitution and human trafficking. Though these are separate, they often feed into each other.
  
• To feed sex tourism, migrant women from rural parts of the developing world are often trafficked ans sold.
  
• It makes it hard for countries to build legitimate industries.
  
• It contributes to the persistent low status of women and girl-children.
  
• Women and girls find it hard to get properly paid employment in other, legitimate sectors.
  
• It damages vulnerable people psychologically.
  
• It creates the environments where under-age sex and child prostitution are more likely to occur.
  
• It makes things bloody difficult for travellers who are NOT sex - tourists. Decent tourists may avoid certain c0untries, making it harder for the country to market "ordinary" tourism.
  

Now the cry I get the most is "but its acceptable in the local culture!" or "the local men are worse". What then? Absolution because everyone else is doing it?

Tosh. If the age of consent was 12 years old, would these "decent men" who have the "odd shag" with a "consenting adult" have sex with 12 year olds in that country? One would hope not: they hold themselves to a higher moral standard. As foreigners, we have an extra responsibilities not to make a bad situation worse.

So that's what I think about that. Once bitten. Forever written.