Fridae

An American man was charged with two counts of having sexual contact with two young boys in Cambodia in what is believed to be the first indictment of its kind under a new federal law that makes it crime for any person in the United States or for American to travel abroad for the purpose of sex tourism involving children.

Cambodian authorities arrested Michael Lewis Clark, a 69-year-old retired Army sergeant in Phnom Penh on June 28, accusing him of "debauchery involving illicit sexual conduct" with boys approximately 10 and 13 years old, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Wednesday.

The Cambodian authorities later dropped the charge and returned Clark to the United States two weeks ago, where he was arrested on a sealed warrant. He was charged with two counts of attempting to and engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places under the new Protect Act, which makes it a crime for US citizens to travel abroad to have sex with children. If convicted, he could receive up to 30 years in prison and a US$250,000 fine.

Prosecutors said Clark, who lived near Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, has spent a considerable amount of time in Cambodia during the past five years and that he might have molested as many as 50 boys and young men, often paying them for sexual services.

He acknowledged that he has been a paedophile since 1996 and that he usually paid the Cambodian boys US$2 each to engage in sexual activity, according to the federal complaint.

The legal significance of the case is the government's first use of a provision of the "Protect Act" signed into law by President Bush just five months ago. The act also includes other provisions designed to protect children in the US and abroad.

In his address to the United Nations Tuesday, Bush called for global cooperation to stop international sexual trafficking and sexual predators.

There's a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable," Bush said. "The victims of sex trade see little of life before they see the very worst of life - an underground of brutality and lonely fear... Those who patronise this industry debase themselves and deepen the misery of others. And governments that tolerate this trade are tolerating a form of slavery."

Bush added that the Department of Justice is actively investigating patrons and sex tour operators and each party can face up to 30 years in prison.

Before the Protect Act was passed in April, US prosecutors were required to prove that a person travelled to a foreign country with the intent of having illicit sex but the new law only requires prosecutors to show merely that the person engaged in or attempted to engage in such acts.

The Australian police initiated the investigation against Clark in 2000 while the investigation and capture of Clark involved Cambodian and US Customs officials as well as a Cambodian child-protection organisation.

A study published recently by the United Nations estimates that a third of the more than 55,000 prostitutes working in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh were under the age of 16.

Leigh Winchell, the special agent in charge of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Seattle told the The Seattle Times that there are tens of thousands of children - some are as young as five - in Southeast Asia and elsewhere in the world who are being forced into the sex trade. He also estimated that thousands of US citizens travel abroad to "commit these types of crimes."