posted January 11, 2002 11:15 PM            

Prostitutes from 25 countries are to meet in India to pray for global peace following the September 11 attacks.

Around 1,250 people are expected at the five-day conference at the Salt Lake football stadium in Calcutta.

They will stage a procession through the streets then hold a prayer meeting for peace.

The event on March 6 is expected to attract prostitutes from the US, UK, France, Germany, Holland, Russia, Malaysia, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and India.

Mrinal Kanti Dutta, from the Durbar Mahila Samanyay Committee, an umbrella grouping of sex workers in eastern India, said India was chosen because of the country's tradition of non-violence.

He said: "It was felt by participants that if they had to pray for a terrorism-free world, they could only do it in India, where such apostles of non-violence as the Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi lived."

Prostitutes will also demand the same status as industrial workers.

Prostitution is illegal in India and activist groups have been demanding governmental recognition of sex work as a trade, Indo Asian News Service reported.

posted January 12, 2002 12:46 AM            

LTTE forces Tamil girls to sleep with strangers so that Mass murderer Prabhakaran can sleep in his own dream land.

Why you have to prostitute women to fund your own freedom struggle?

posted January 12, 2002 01:07 AM            

Boy sex horror

Young boys are being trained to become professional sex workers, even receiving a certficates at the end of a 'friendship course' in Hikkaduwa

By Leon Berenger

In a dimly lit room of a sleazy hotel in Hikkaduwa a group of boys, the eldest not being more than 14, waits patiently for their names to be called.

The children have come to the hotel mostly on their own account. Some may have been persuaded by their parents and even friends to enter the 'friendship course' which eventually would model them as professional sex workers catering to the growing homosexual and paedophile market in this once flourishing seasside resort town.

The selected candidates are told that they would have to play their part mostly in pairs and sometimes in groups, with the so-called trainers insisting on a high degree of professionalism that is needed for the foreign market, since the clientele are mostly Westerners.

Male prostitution is no secret within the borders of Hikkaduwa. Infact it has become a way of life for the people, many of whom depend heavily on the tourist industry to keep their home fires burning.

So, sex between male and male is no big deal for the local populace, and what's even more interesting is that it rakes in huge sums of money and in some cases even bails out hotels and guest houses facing closure owing to poor tourist arrivals.

Apart from a handful of recognised hotels who struggle on to maintain their dignity the bulk of the other lodges do not hesitate to rent out their space for anything as long as the greenbacks keep flowing in.

And when there is a request to rent out their place to train boys as professional sex workers the doors are still wide open, even though the youngest may be just six or even less. But then who cares? If one guest house refuses there are dozens of others ready to offer their services.

The high rate of male prostitution in this country is already well known in most parts of Europe and even across the Atlantic, thanks largely due to a covert advertising strategy which has now even flowed through the internet and other forms of modern technology.

But now it appears the time has come to introduce more professional handlers into the booming market which will rake in up market customers for a larger fee.

And so that is the reason for the presence of those youngsters in that wayside guest house in Hikkaduwa.

The Sunday Times learns that selected candidates are made to undergo a three-week crash course where they will be taught and trained on how to sexually entertain their clients.

During the training period the youngsters are asked to perform oral sex on each other while all the time being shown homosexual clippings from pornographic movies. Sometimes these sessions are conducted in groups, depending on the instructor on hand. The training sessions are also filmed and these tapes eventually find its way into several European countries where prospective clients are shown the performances and encouraged to visit Hikkaduwa in Sri Lanka.

The Sunday Times found out that on occasions sweets and other goodies given to the children are often laced with drugs to check if it would enhance their performances. At the end of the course, the participants are handed a certificate, a piece of document they are told will help them to find customers who are willing to pay more.

For their part the organisers behind this sordid trade lose little time in getting the message across to their clients in foreign lands.

All one has to do is to reach Hikkaduwa and make contact with the local agent and the rest will be seen to.

There is nothing to worry about anything. The organisers, pimps, hotel operators, beach boys even the gypsies know what's going on, but they prefer to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear while remaining woven into one happy family as long as the bucks keep rolling in.

But now there is also an increasing foreign hand in the trade, with more and more westerners, they themselves homosexuals getting directly involved by buying their way into the industry along with the cooperation of their local lap dogs.

Foreigners, mainly Germans are buying up a lot of land and buildings and extending cash to support other institutions regarded friendly to their operations. But they also have many other things on their mind.

For one, they know it is a lucrative trade if it can be done in a more professional manner in keeping with foreign competition. So the initial investments do not matter if the market could be improved to international styling. And this is exactly what they are doing in Hikkaduwa and perhaps in other known tourist destinations of this country as well.

But the sad fallout from all this is that the genuine tourists are leaving Hikkaduwa never to return for what they see and hear all around them during their brief holiday is not pleasant and to an extent even disgusting. One local businessman said that the foreigners had practically bulldozed their way into the city with their money, buying up whatever was available and possible, and to this end there are many locals to help them from the beach goons to the local officialdom.

The foreigners have not only targeted Hikkaduwa but have spread themselves as far as Tangalle.

At the end of it all they would have earned hundred times more than their initial investments, leaving behind a trail of sick children, who will one day grow into adults and somewhere in the dark corners of their minds begin to curse the society they were born into.

The Tourist Board authorities are aware of the harm being caused to the industry as a result of such activity, but they silently agree that there is very little that can be done.

They laid much of the blame on the police who they claim should play the lead role in battling this scourge by conducting more raids and arresting known pimps and others connected with this trade. But this is not happening for reasons, perhaps known only to them, one senior official said.