Awardees

The Times of India

February 25, 2001

HEADLINE: IF GOVT DOESN'T CRACK DOWN, GOA WILL GO BANGKOK WAY'

BYLINE: NINA MARTYRIS

MUMBAI: Goan writer Mario Cabral e Sa once wrote, We used to think that God
was a white man in a three-piece suit and a bowler hat. But the hippie killed
the white God for the Goan. He died when we saw him lying naked on the beach.''



After the hedonism of hippiedom, tourism has delivered a more greivous blow
to Goa: the increase of paedophilia-driven tourism. In other words, the sexual
abuse of children by tourists. Not every tourist comes to Goa to soak in the
sun
and sand.



There are no official statistics on paedophilia. The police and tourism
ministry obdurately shut their eyes to it__why would they want to ruffle the
golden goose__but Goa knows that thanks to the tourist epidemic, it is now part
of the global organised child-sex and pornography racket that runs from the
Philippines to Bangkok to Sri Lanka to Goa, catering largely to a cash-rich
European clientele.



Goa may know it, but its government doesn't want to. The tourism ministry
sticks to its official position: The tourists are behaving beautifully.
Everything is all right.



But Bhaile shows that everything is not all right. Bhaile ( Outsiders' in
Konkani) is a documentary on the growing incidence of child sexual abuse by
tourists in Goa. Through this short film, criss-crossed with song and shadow,
film-maker Ajay Noronha attempts to grasp the ministerial ostrich by its neck
and yank it out of the sand. What he's saying is: Take a good hard look at what
is going on on the beaches around you. Things are not hunky dory.



Noronha__a freelance cameraman who works with Kaun Banega Crorepati?__didn't
get foreign funding (naturally not) or a well-endowed fellowship to make this
film. He decided to make it because what he saw in Goa on his regular trips
there bothered him deeply. He noticed, more and more, how elderly white single
males were to be seen with groups of young children. Mostly, the children were
Karnataka Lamanis or tribals, poor and homeless.



Says Noronha, What seems like innocent banter often lead to holding,
caressing and fondling. When I started talking to beach shack-owners and taxi
drivers, it became increasingly clear that Goa was a favoured destination for
paedophiles. Being a Goan myself, I decided to make a film that would increase
the awareness of this abuse of children.''



He soon found that getting people to talk on camera was a mission impossible.
What really shocked me was the attitude of most of the locals__that the
children
involved were not our children' but outsiders' children'. As long as the white
tourist was paying them good money for staying in their guest rooms, they
turned
a blind eye to his other activities. Therefore, thanks to an excessively greedy
tourism industry, a lack of political will and a lax police force, it seems
as if we are allowing our children to be used as commodities.''



While on the one hand, Noronha was faced with the
not-our-children-not-our-problem' attitude, on the other it was governmental
indifference. Functioning in this circle of silence and denial, it was hard
to keep cynicism at bay, but as he interviewed social workers, teachers and
priests, a glimmer of hope began to emerge. If the locals got together, things
could change. When Bhaile was screened in Goa, the response was tremendous.



Certain images and interviews from the 40-minute documentary stand out: Ian
Dalton, a New Zealander who has settled in Goa, perturbed, saying on camera,
I have seen tourists touching, even kissing and caressing children on the
beach.
One would assume that it becomes more active in the hotel room or guest room.
It's become organised, that's what upsets me. They don't just land up in Goa.''



A sharp cut to tourism minister Victoria Fernandes saying, At present, there
is nothing. We like peace, Goa is a beautiful place.''

Cut to the voices of children giggling, sometimes stumbling over words, as
they recount their interaction with foreigners: He kissed me, he gave me a
bicycle and Rs 600. I will slap him if he tries to kiss me.''



Till a few years ago, says Noronha, there were Internet sites where you could
book not just your hotel room in Goa, but also your companion' between eight
and
12 years of age. After Freddy Peats, the sites were shut down.

HEADLINE: Plunder in the sun brings idyll to an end

BYLINE: Luke Harding in New Delhi



Twenty years ago Cavelossim beach was an idyllic place. Walking along the
10km stretch of sand, you were unlikely to meet anybody - except perhaps the
odd
fisherman or traveller bobbing lazily in the surf.



This changed in 1987 when the first charter flight from Britain touched down
at Dabolim airport. Since then Goa has undergone a profound and unsubtle
transformation. At Cavelos sim, in once-deserted South Goa, the five-star
developers moved in. They bulldozed the ancient sand dunes, sank illegal tube
wells into the ground, and constructed a nine-hole golf course. They built a
preposterous artificial lagoon.



The villagers who for generations had relied on local wells for clean
drinking water discovered to their horror that it now tasted of salt. More and
more charter flights, meanwhile, took off from London and Man chester. By the
mid-90s the sand dunes that had formed a natural barrier against the angry
monsoon storms had completely vanished.



"The area has been irreparably damaged," Norma Alvares of the Goa
Foundation, the former colony's leading environmental group, said. "The hotels
have destroyed the clean water reservoir and the locals are now dependent on
water brought in by tanker." Across the rest of Goa, the same story is be ing
repeated. At Calangute and Baga, once inhabited by only a handful of hippies
in huts, the beach is now crammed with hotels.



Of the 17 charter flights that ar rive in Goa every week from October to
March, 13 are full of British holidaymakers. "The British are very well
behaved.
We hardly have any problems with them," S.V. Balaram, of Goa's tourism
association, said.



It was the Portuguese who colonised Goa back in the 16th century. But it is
the British who come here now. Sixty per cent of Goa's 210,000 visitors last
year were from Britain.

Few foreign tourists, though, seem to give the environment much thought. "North Goa's beaches are dirty and too crowded. There is too much plastic," Mr
Balaram admitted. "Some tourists are lazy and ignorant. They just think: This
is
India. We don't care."




Having turned a blind eye to illegal development for most of the last
decade, the local authorities are now trying to come up with a plan. They want
to prevent more construction and encourage tourists into Goa's tropical
interior.

There is no doubt that some people have got rich from foreign visitors in
Goa. The economy is now overwhelmingly dependent on tourism. And enterprising
villagers have made money by renting out their spare rooms to backpackers.



But now there are too many rooms for too few tourists. With profit margins
squeezed, hotels are not bothering, for example, to recycle the thousands of
bottles of mineral water left behind.

The locals are looking forward to the monsoon, when the tourists go home. "In the season, hotels buy up all the fish. Consequently there is over-fishing.
The only time Goans get to eat fish is when the rains come," Mrs Alvares said.

From Our Margao Bureau





MARGAO, July 31: A committee formed to look into the rehabilitation of
minor girls rescued from the prostitution dens has the task of rehabilitating
five
girls at present.



In the fresh cases taken up by the committee headed by deputy collector (Vasco),
Mr Yeshwant V Tavde, statements of all the five minor girls were recorded.



Currently, all the victims are housed at Protective Home For Women at Merces.
Goa police rescued all the five minor girls from the flash trade and their
case was presented before the committee.



Besides, Mr Tavde, the members include Ms Albertina Almeida (Bailancho Saad),
Ms Auda Viegas (Bailancho Ekvott), Ms Mariott Correia (Positive People), Ms

Promila Fernandes (state government) and a doctor from Goa Medical College.
The committee met on Tuesday to record the statements.



According to the sources, one of the minor girls in her statement has said
that she was employed as a maid servant in Calcutta, from where she was forced
into
prostitution.



Her employer sold her to a gharwali for over Rs 1.5 lakh. The matter came
to light only after there was a fight between the Calcutta based lady and
the gharwali
and police were informed. The police rescued her from Baina and housed her
at Merces.



A committee is now looking into the prospects of rehabilitating these minor
girls.



Either they would be stationed in protective homes or let to go to their native
places; depending on their choice, stated an official from the district administration.

At protective homes they are given training in stitching, painting and other
skills so that they can be self-dependent.



It is learnt that those girls who were rescued earlier were sent to protective
homes in Bangalore and Hyderabad while some preferred to go back to their native
place.