July 28, 2004

President Bush is sinking to a new low in his efforts to win the anti-Castro Cuban-American vote in Florida. He is alleging that the Cuban government promotes child prostitution, and says the best way to solve that problem is regime change in Cuba.

There is one slight problem with the president's allegation: It is untrue.

But as a feminist and human-rights activist, I am pleased with the attention the president is bringing to the multibillion-dollar commercial sex-trade industry.

According to UNICEF, 2 million children are forced, sold or coerced into the commercial sex trade each year. Untold numbers of others are sexually abused even when not forced into the sex trade.

According to World Vision, a U.S.-based Christian relief organization, Thailand, Cambodia, India and Brazil have the highest rates of commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Yet the Bush administration does not speak of promoting regime change in those countries, raising suspicions that the accusations against Cuba are solely political.

Before we go looking for change abroad, we should look at the issue of child prostitution at home.

According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 300,000 young people below the age of 18 involved in prostitution in the United States. It is also widely known that an estimated 25 percent of sex tourists outside the United States are U.S. citizens.

In 1995, the scandal of three U.S. servicemen who raped a 12-year-old girl from Okinawa, Japan, revealed a wider trend of sexual violence against women on and around U.S. military bases all over the world.

"The victimization of women has accompanied all American military invasions and has been condoned by the United States government, as well as the occupied nation's government," writes Jennifer Latstetter in her essay entitled American Military-Base Prostitution. "Furthermore, the use of Rest and Recreation sites -- i.e., government-funded brothels -- by the American GIs has been in full-fledge use since the Korean War."

Let's stop the U.S. military from allowing soldiers to engage in prostitution abroad.

Let's protect our 300,000 minors who are prostituting themselves on the streets of our large cities.

Let's educate U.S. travelers to reduce the percentage of Americans who travel abroad in search for underage prostitutes.

Let's also start leading global efforts by not being one of the last signatories to international covenants that protect children from such abuses.

Ironically, while the president busily points his finger at Cuba, it is Cuba that ratified the U.N. Optional Protocol agreement -- which protects children from sexual commercialization -- almost a year before the United States did.

We have our work cut out for us to stop child prostitution.

Let's clean our own house before we point fingers at others to win a few votes.

Ana Perez is director of the Cuba program of the international human-rights group, Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org). She can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.