The principal aim of this legislation is to provide a real and enforceable deterrent to the sexual abuse of children outside Australia by Australian citizens and residents. It is unfortunate that a minority of Australian citizens and residents are now known internationally as major offenders in several Asian countries. They exploit the vulnerability of children in foreign countries where laws against child sexual abuse may not be as strict, or as consistently enforced, as in Australia.
The bill aims to ensure that cowardly crimes committed against children outside Australia which are not prosecuted in the country in which they were committed can be prosecuted effectively in Australia. The bill also focuses on the activities of those who promote, organise and profit from child sex tourism. Provided they operate from Australia, or have a relevant link with Australia, they too will be able to be prosecuted for their contribution to the abuse of foreign children.
Some may wonder why the Australian parliament should enact laws to protect foreign children from sexual abuse and ask why the foreign country should not protect its own children. It is true that the primary responsibility for protecting children from sexual exploitation rests, as it should, with the countries where the children are exploited. The Asian countries which I have visited are indeed taking measures to do so but are confronted by social and economic factors which make their task difficult. They welcome any assistance in kerbing [sic] the trade in children's bodies that other governments can give. Some other countries have already enacted, or plan to enact, legislation similar to that which is now before the House.
Apart from the fact that Australia is gaining an unenviable reputation in the world press on this issue, we also have international obligations to protect children, whatever their nationality. Australia ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 17 December 1990, and this imposes an obligation to protect children, at both the national and the international level, from sexual exploitation and abuse. Australia played a key role in the development of the convention on the Rights of the Child and the Australian government is committed to pursuing the aims of that convention. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissioner, Mr Brian Burdekin, has been asked to prepare a draft protocol to the convention specifically addressing the problems of child prostitution and other forms of abuse and sexual exploitation of children.
As I indicated in my address to the First World Congress on Family Law and Children's Rights in Sydney on 4 July 1993, it is clear from the recent World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna that children's rights are high on the international agenda. That conference highlighted the need to develop effective and independent international machinery to ensure that abuses of children's rights are identified and that tangible measures are taken to remedy those abuses.
The bill aims to achieve these ends by creating sexual offences, relating to conduct outside Australia, which will be punishable in Australia and offences of encouraging or benefiting from child sex tourism which may be committed in or out of Australia and will be punishable in Australia provided there is a relevant link with this country. All these offences will have substantial penalties, ranging from 10 to 17 years [sic] imprisonment, or correspondingly high pecuniary penalties if a company is involved.
The bill should send a clear message to child sex abusers and those who profit from their activities that the government and the community condemn their behaviour and do not intend to tolerate it.[19]