A Call to Action

The following article first appeared in the Peruvian news journal "Peru.21" on September 21. The article was picked up by a number of news agencies around the world. The excerpt I have inserted below comes from the Indian newspaper Deccan Herald.

This is disturbing on so many levels - but perhaps most of all for the real evil that exists in the world. The challenge and "job" for all organizations working with children in Peru is to focus our efforts toward the protection and advocacy of these blessed lives.

The real work is only just starting!

Peruvian parents renting children to pornographers: Report

Lima, Sep 21 (EFE):

Peruvian families are renting their children as young as three to pornographic filmmakers for a 'nuevo sol' (34 cents), a media report said.

"Many families in the interior of country, for example, in the Amazon city of Iquitos, rent out their children for money. In exchange for a nuevo sol or a quarter of a chicken, they order them to prostitute themselves," Accion por los Niños director Maria Teresa Mosquera told newspaper Peru 21 Sunday. The Peruvian Network against Child Pornography complained that its experts have identified foreign bands, which operate in tourist cities like Cuzco and Puno, abusing minors in deprived areas, making pornography and selling it in black market. Their network operates through chat rooms and children are often killed after making pornographic films, they claimed. "We have information that they are making the tapes in the Peruvian jungle, in cities like Iquitos, Pucallpa and Madre de Dios," said the network's president Dimitri Senmache. Peruvian police cited difficulties like prosecution delays and existing privacy protection rules in arresting culprits.