onlymadeleine

Settlement details released for Sask. couple accused of child abuse
Last Updated: Friday, November 19, 2004 | 8:09 AM ET
CBC News
Some details have been released of the settlement paid to a Saskatoon couple who were prosecuted on false child abuse allegations in the early 1990s.
Former foster parents Richard and Kari Klassen received $100,000 each, a share of a $1.5 million compensation package for malicious prosecution.

They will receive a further $50,000 each if the government's appeal of the malicious prosecution ruling is rejected.



Richard Klassen

Richard Klassen says he only wanted to clear the family name.

Compensation was also paid to 10 other members of the Klassen and Kvello families, who were also falsely accused. The 12 relatives were charged with abusing three foster children.

The three children later recanted their story.

Continue Article

Earlier this week the Saskatchewan government settled with another couple who ran a day care in Martensville, near Saskatoon, who were also at the centre of a notorious case of wrongful sex-abuse charges.

The province said it will pay $925,000 to Ron and Linda Sterling and to someone who was a minor when charges were laid in 1992.



http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2004/11/ ... 41118.html

Crime/Incidents

Spanish police hunt German 'chill-out' star accused of child abuse

By: thinkSPAIN


The Fugitives Unit of the Spanish National Police are looking for Oliver Shanti, a 58 year old German musician who is also the leader of a sect believed responsible for sexually molesting over a thousand young children. Shanti himself is accused of abusing over a hundred children during orgies at a mansion owned by the sect in Germany where Shanti used to lived with dozens of minors.

Investigators are focusing their efforts on the south of the Galicia region close to the Portuguese village where the singer now lives. Shanti is somewhat of a local celebrity in Vila Nova de Cerveira, where he has been honoured for his generosity after donating a sculpture and funding several ambulances.

German police have circulated a photo-fit description of Shanti and offered a €3,000 euro reward for information leading to his capture.


http://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/12984

WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe

Portuguese president denies link to child abuse scandal
By Paul Mitchell
20 January 2004
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author

Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio has appeared on television to criticise a newspaper that linked him to a paedophile scandal that has dominated the news in Portugal for the last year.

Sampaio denounced the “irresponsibility” of certain newspapers for reporting “the ill-considered leaks” originating from magistrates investigating the sexual abuse scandal at the Casa Pia children’s homes. Casa Pia is one of Portugal’s oldest and most respected public institutions and runs 10 homes caring for 4,500 children.

Sampaio continued, “It’s a crime that should be punished when the time is right. The head of state cannot legitimately let these offences pass.... They have the most serious consequences for the respect and consideration due the president of the republic.”

News reports appearing in the Jornal de Noticias claimed Sampaio and Portugal’s European Commissioner Antonio Vitorino were mentioned in anonymous letters sent to the magistrates investigating the Casa Pia scandal. A few days earlier, Portugal’s Attorney General José Souto Moura formally charged 10 people, including well-known politicians and celebrities, with organising a paedophile network, sexual abuse and rape of children at Casa Pia. No date for a trial has yet been decided.

The most high-profile person amongst those charged is Paulo Pedroso, the MP and labour and training minister from 1999 to 2001 with responsibility for Casa Pia who is regarded as a future leader of the Socialist Party. The Socialist Party says the scandal is a plot and Pedroso says he is the victim of a smear campaign and, along with the others accused, denies the charges.

Souto Moura also charged Jorge Ritto, a former Portuguese ambassador; Herman José, a comedian and talk show host; the popular TV games show host Carloz Cruz, known as “Mr Television”; Joao Diniz, a high society doctor; and Manuel Abrantes, a former assistant director of Casa Pia.

The charges against these members of Portugal’s elite come after a year of investigations, 15,000 pages of evidence and the questioning of 600 witnesses. The case only saw the light of day after persistent campaigning by the abused children and their families led to reports appearing in the newspapers in November 2002.

In October 2003, Carlos Silvino, a former driver at Casa Pia, was charged with 35 counts of sexually abusing four children over a three-year period and last month charged with a further 662 counts of sexual abuse. Silvino is alleged to have organised the paedophile ring for over two decades, with many incidents apparently occurring at Ritto’s villa near Lisbon.

The Casa Pia scandal has been described as Portugal’s biggest political crisis since the overthrow of the military dictatorship in 1974. Not only have top politicians and celebrities been implicated in the paedophile ring, but the authorities apparently knew about it and covered it up for years. Reports first emerged in the 1980s, but police dropped their investigations and officials destroyed documents. The former secretary of state for families, Teresa Costa Macedo, said she received death threats after she notified the police.

The Diario de Noticias warned that if a paedophile “mafia network ... really exists, it is Portuguese democracy which is danger” and the author Antonio Mega Ferreira mourned, “I can’t recall, during the past 25 years of democracy, ever having felt we were going through such a disturbing, frail, demoralising, upsetting time as we are going through now.”

Sampaio himself has called the Casa Pia scandal “a national disgrace” and urged the Portuguese people to keep their faith in the justice system, as has Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, saying, “The Portuguese people want justice to be done. So do I.... As prime minister, I have complete confidence in the Portuguese legal system.”

Rui Fernandes, who sits on the national secretariat of the Portuguese Communist Party, insisted that “the idea of a crisis of the legal system is excessive.”

He accused Durao Barroso’s government of finding it “beneficial to develop this idea of crisis in order to justify deep reforms of the justice system,” including restrictions on “the independence of the judges or placing the Criminal Investigation Department under the direct control of the government.”

There is no doubt that the government has used the scandal to attack the opposition and justify the widespread use of phone tapping (there are nearly 300 pages of transcripts of tapped calls made by Socialist Party leaders, including its leader Ferro Rodrigues), long periods of detention without charge and other repressive measures. A whole debate on “limits on the freedom of the press” has also been opened up, with Durao Barroso saying that as long as journalists “are held to respect the law” the freedom of the press “is crowned and untouchable.”

However, the public anger over the scandal and the behaviour of Portugal’s ruling class expresses discontent with the political elite and with social conditions for which all the official parties, including the Communist Party, must take responsibility. Portugal is one of the poorest countries in Europe, with the lowest wage rates and high employment, and is threatened further by the lower costs offered by the eastward expansion of the European Union into the former Eastern bloc countries. The use of phone taps, detention and other repressive measures will be vital to defeat any political rebellion against the government.


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jan20 ... -j20.shtml

Algarve 'haven' for paedophiles ........... http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2005 ... 00,00.html

JON JOST ANNOUNCES NEW FILM PROJECT ON THE KIDNAPPING OF HIS DAUGHTER, CLARA JOST AND THE SUBSEQUENT ILLEGALITIES OF THE PORTUGUESE JUDICIARY AND GOVERNMENTAL AUTHORITIES
American filmmaker Jon Jost, who will be attending the Venice Film Festival September 8 through 11, in the Cinema Digitale competition with his most recent feature, Homecoming, will announce during the festival the upcoming production of a new film which will deal with the kidnapping of his daughter, Clara Jost, on November 2, 2000, by Portuguese film director Teresa Villaverde from their home in Rome.

The as-yet untitled work is being made with BulletProof Film, of Chicago, Illinois, and with the collaboration of the Portuguese organization 26-4, headed by Paulo Quintella. 26-4 is an organization for Portuguese parents who have had to deal with the juvenile court systems of that country, which have chronically shown themselves to be corrupted and to operate in illegal manners, most frequently adversely to fathers. BulletProof Film has a record of co-production in films with strong social and political content.

Clara Jost was illegally taken from Italy by Teresa Villaverde, her mother, and Portuguese writer/director, on Nov. 2, 2000, and has since been held in Portugal, illegally under the terms of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction to which Portugal, Italy and the United States are all signatories. Italian authorities formally requested the return of Clara in December 2000 under this Convention, and concurred that Clara Jost’s removal was illegal under Italian law (sottrazione di un minore). The Portuguese court ignored this request, claiming that Clara was a “habitual resident” of Lisbon, a perjured claim filed by Teresa Villaverde on her arrival in Portugal: Clara Jost had lived her first 6 months in Lisbon, the next 14 in Paris, and the balance of her three and a half years of life at the time of her kidnapping, in Rome. Ms. Villaverde’s claim was an act of perjury and a crime - though a crime which the courts, the Attorney General and the President of Portugal have shown no inclination to question, just as they have shown no interest in investigating or correcting the corruption that prevails in that country.

Clara had been cast by her mother in the film Agua e Sal in the role of a child abducted by her mother, fictionally played by Italian actress Galatea Ranzi, who, as was noticed by Portuguese critics was a virtual clone of Teresa Villaverde. Owing to the departure of Portuguese actor Joaquin d’Almeida for a Hollywood film, Villaverde shot the fictional kidnapping 10 weeks after she had abducted Clara in reality, despite Jost’s vehement objections made to the Juvenile Court Judge Rui Machado e Moura and to producer Paolo Branco.

Following the advice of the US Consulate General and of his lawyer in Portugal, Mr. Jost went through the legal procedures in Portugal only to find that the entire system was utterly corrupted, and that legality, in any meaningful sense, simply does not exist in that country. Following an illegal ruling by the Portuguese Appeals Court (Tribunal do Relacoes) in October 2001, Mr. Jost commenced an Internet exposure of the corruption of Portugal’s Judiciary, its Attorney General, and finally of its President, all of whom are involved in this case. In June 2002, in response to this Internet based effort, the Portuguese newspaper, O Independente, published an article on the matter, ending with the statement that “The writer of these emails does not know that corruption is a Portuguese illness seldom mentioned and never investigated.”

Prior to Mr. Jost’s campaign on behalf of his daughter, the press of Portugal, as suggested in this statement, never mentioned corruption beyond petty instances of police bribery. Immediately after the publication of the O Independente article, the press of Portugal sharply changed, and commenced a series of revelations including in the most sordid case, that of Casa Pia, in which a state run orphanage system was used for a pedophile ring which included highest members of Portugal’s government and cultural establishment, including its most famous TV presenter, the second ranking Socialist Party officer, and a decorated Portuguese ambassador – the entire case had been kept under wraps by the legal system for over a decade. Exposure of this case, as well as numerous other instances of a systematic and institutionalized corruption at all levels of the Portuguese government have resulted in the most profound political crisis in Portugal since their so-called revolution of 1974 when the remnants of the dictator Salazar’s government were thrown out.

Mr. Jost takes full credit for provoking the Portuguese press into taking up its proper role in an alleged “democracy,” and for having a major hand in triggering the present crisis in the corrupted political system there.

Mr. Jost has openly and publicly accused (and has the proof to back it up) the following parties: Judge, Rui Machado e Moura, Juvenile Court, Lisbon Attorney General Adriano Machado Souto Moura, President Jorge Sampaio, as well as the Appeals Court and the Conselho do Magistratura Superior (the judiciaries oversight commission), of corruption in this case. All of these parties were involved in this case, and all responded in utterly illegal and criminal manners under Portuguese law. They have all been invited to sue for libel, but understandably have not done so. The Attorney General Souto Moura has in the past week come under intense fire for corrupt actions taken in the Casa Pia case, with former President Mario Soares calling for his dismissal. Similarly President Sampaio has come under intense attack in recent days.

Mr. Jost has also cited producer Paolo Branco, Gemini Films in France and In Portugal, in this case as he is the producer for Ms. Villaverde, and he declined to stop the filming of Clara’s fictional kidnapping when requested by Mr. Jost to do so. Paulo Branco postures as a famed “independent” producer in Portugal and France, though all of the funding he receives is from public sources, and derives from corruption of public institutions. Mr. Branco’s films never make money, but he himself has established a large thoroughbred horse ranch across the river Tejo from Lisbon – all with Portuguese and EU taxpayer money. Far from being “independent” Branco is totally dependent upon his capacity to extract his funding from public, tax-paid sources that are sustained via corruption. Portugal’s government is by its own admission destitute, but nevertheless finds the means to hand out 700,000 Euro each to 4 or 5 Portuguese filmmakers each year, much of this passing through the hands of Branco, who within the Portuguese film community is perceived as a kind of Mafioso, both feared and despised.

Mr. Jost’s film will cover this case in detail, but will also deal on a broader level with the global problem of child abduction, an increasingly common phenomenon, in which courts in many countries twist the law in favor of domestic parties. The film will demonstrate how the corruption which occurs in these cases is reflective of a broader, generalized corruption that pervades the world in this time, including the United States which in its flaunting of international accords and treaties under the Bush administration has inflicted serious damage upon its own citizens, as well as acting against the best interests of the world.

Mr. Jost hopes to have the film completed within the next year, perhaps ready for the Venice Festival, 2005.

http://www.jon-jost.com/Press/clarafilm.html

Originally posted by Janine and moved at her request

Child Prostitution

The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children

Portuguese Republic (Portugal) [ Country-by-Country Reports ]

The Portuguese Republic [map] is located in SW Europe on the western side of the Iberian Peninsula and includes the Madeira Islands and the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean. Portugal is bordered by Spain (E & N) and by the Atlantic Ocean (W & S). Its capital and largest city is Lisbon. Economic growth had been above the EU average for much of the 1990’s, but fell back in 2001-04. GDP per capita stands at two-thirds that of the Big Four EU economies. A poor educational system, in particular, has been an obstacle to greater productivity and growth.



CAUTION: The following links and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Portugal. Some of these links may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated, misleading or even false. No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content.

ECPAT – On-line form for reporting child prostitution and other sexual offences against children

Quick Search for Missing Children - Select Gender, Country (Portugal), and Years Missing

National Plan of Action

Bur of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor - Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005

CHILDREN - The high-profile trial of a pedophilia operation at the Casa Pia children's home in Lisbon that began in November 2004 continued at year's end. The 8 defendants faced charges ranging from procurement and rape to homosexual acts with adolescents and sexual abuse of minors for abusing 46 children.

Trafficking of children for sexual exploitation and forced labor remained a problem.

Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2001

[30] The Committee notes the State party's recent initiative to develop mechanisms allowing doctors, teachers and other relevant professionals to lodge complaints of alleged sexual abuse or exploitation of children (Law 99 of 25 August 2001).

[56] The Committee notes the State party's intention, as declared during the dialogue, to proceed with ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and to adopt relevant domestic legislation.

Concluding Observations - Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights - 2000

[14] The Committee takes note with concern of the increase in pedophilia and child pornography. These phenomena are associated with the increase in drug trafficking and consumption and other criminal activities that endanger the security and health of the population of the State party.

Portugal Braced As Child Prostitution Ring Trial Opens

The case has shocked Portugal, making some people aware of pedophilia for the first time and throwing into question the way governments have run orphanages.

CRC Concludes Consideration of Portugal's Report on Compliance with Convention

DISCUSSION - Asked about the sexual abuse of children, the delegation said that the minimum age for sexual consent was 14 years and sexual crimes committed against children below that age were punished by law. Those who facilitated prostitution activities involving children under 18 years were prosecuted. To that end, the Government had signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Sale of Children, Child Pornography and Child Prostitution.

Press Release - UN Committee On Economic, Social And Cultural Rights 24th Session

DISCUSSION - Portugal said that a number of agencies had been set up to oversee the well being of children and their development in and outside the family. In order to reduce child prostitution, particularly that catering to tourists, the Government had taken measures to create employment for street children.

Monitoring - Protection - What Makes Good Laws Against CSEC ? [DOC]

FORMAL COMPLAINT REQUIREMENT - Brazil, Chile and Venezuela, among others, have procedures that require older children (on average from 15 years and up) to file a complaint before a prosecution can take place. In Portugal, victims older than 16 years must file a complaint, but for cases involving younger children the public prosecutor may prosecute independently if it is in the victim’s interest.






Human Trafficking in [Portugal] [other countries]
Street Children in [Portugal] [other countries]
Child Prostitution in [Portugal] [other countries]

Are our children safe?

The Polícia Judiciária website showing missing people.

By: Eloise Walton

eloise@portugalresident.com

THE CASE of missing British four-year-old Madeleine McCann has caused a wave of shock, anger and disbelief at how such a devastating crime could happen in our sunny peaceful Algarve. The exact motive for such a heartless kidnapping is unknown but it may be similar to the many crimes against children that occur in Portugal each year.

Missing children

The Polícia Judiciária (PJ) has added little Madeleine to their missing persons’ list along with seven other children. They include Sofia Oliveira aged two and Jorge Sepúlveda aged 14 at the time of their disappearances, the oldest case dating back to 1991. In recent years, several horrific cases of child abuse and murder, acted out on Portuguese children by family or family friends, have come to light in Portugal.

Recent cases include the one of Joana Cipriano, an eight-year-old girl who was supposedly murdered by her mother and uncle in September 2004, Daniel, a six-year-old deaf and dumb little boy who was sexually abused and murdered by his 16-year-old step father in 2005 and Vanessa, a five-year-old girl who was tortured by her father and grandmother and whose body was found floating in the Douro River in 2006.

No register

Unlike the UK, there is no register for child sex offenders in Portugal as paedophilia is supposedly not a problem. British police sent information on all paedophiles known to be in Portugal at this time to help authorities working on Madeleine’s case.

Child support

A child support agency in Portugal called Instituto de Apoio à Criança, which was founded on March 14, 1983, counts on the help of professionals such as doctors, magistrates, psychologists and social security workers, among others ,to help protect children’s rights.

Instituto de Apoio à Criança created, with the support of Portugal Telecom, a free phone number, 1410, which is destined for missing and abused children.

Alexandra Simões, co-ordinator of the SOS missing child phone line for Instituto de Apoio à Criança, told The Resident that last year the institution opened 31 new cases relating to missing children. Of these 31 cases, five were of children under the age of six and 17 related to children between the ages of 11 and 15, with 54 per cent of children going missing from the Lisbon area along.

Unfortunately, only 24 of the 31 missing children have so far been found and two of those were found already dead. Sadly, reported cases of missing children have increased since the SOS phone line was created in 1988.

Instituto de Apoio à Criança has organised the second European conference this year focusing on missing and sexually exploited children. The event will take place next Friday, May 25, on the International Missing Children’s Day, at the Assembleia da República new auditorium in Praça de São Bento, Lisbon. Entry is free.

For more information on the Instituto de Apoio à Criança, visit their website at http://www.iacrianca.pt.

http://portugalresident.com/portugalres ... p?ID=19001

Portugal
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Background
Further information
Concerns in Europe, January-June 2002: Portugal
(AI Index: EUR 01/007/2002)
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All AI documents on Portugal


In November a parliamentary commission of inquiry was established to investigate allegations of interference in the affairs of the Judiciary Police by members of the government. The allegations stemmed from the resignation of two senior prosecutors of the Judiciary Police in charge of investigations into corruption and financial crimes. The parliamentary inquiry collapsed after a few weeks owing to disagreement among the members of the commission over who should give evidence. A major investigation into allegations of corruption, extortion and abuse of power by officers of the Republican National Guard – as a result of which at least 17 people were remanded in custody – was also ongoing.

The Constitution was amended to allow for the extradition to a European Union member state of people accused of offences punishable under the law of the requesting state with life imprisonment. The amendments also allow for police night searches, authorized by a judge, of the homes of people suspected of particularly violent or highly organized crimes, including “terrorism”.

The slow functioning of the justice system at various levels continued to have a negative impact on ensuring the protection of fundamental human rights. Routine use of prolonged pre-trial detention – sometimes without charges – during criminal investigations continued to mean that around a third of the prison population had not been tried.

Police ill-treatment

There were reports of police ill-treatment of people at the time of arrest and in police stations. The alleged victims included children, women and people belonging to ethnic minorities. In some cases attempts by the victims to lodge complaints against the police were reportedly hampered.

In August, two women, Mónica Godinho and Cláudia Domingues, alleged that they had been beaten with truncheons, slapped and kicked by several police officers at the Public Security Police (PSP) station of Cascais, near Lisbon, where they had been taken following a car accident. Cláudia Domingues was also reportedly pushed over, causing her head to hit the floor. Both alleged that they were verbally abused because of their sexual orientation. The two women, who were charged with assault, lodged a complaint. A criminal investigation was ongoing at the end of the year.
Police shootings

António Pereira and Nuno Lucas were shot dead by the PSP in two separate incidents in disputed circumstances. According to reports, both men were unarmed and there was no immediate threat to the lives of either the police officers involved or any other people. In December 2001 Ângelo Semedo, a 17-year-old boy of Cape Verdean origin, had also been killed in disputed circumstances. In October AI wrote to the government to seek clarification about the circumstances of these three fatal shootings and was informed in December that criminal investigations into the circumstances of the shootings of António Pereira and Nuno Lucas were ongoing. The General Inspectorate of the Internal Administration (IGAI) had also opened disciplinary proceedings against the police officers involved in both cases, but neither had been suspended or ordered not to carry firearms. The government also informed AI that Ângelo Semedo had been hit in the abdomen by a bullet fired by the police officer who had been pursuing him on foot, in connection with reports that a car had been stolen and the driver threatened with violence. In October, following disciplinary proceedings, the IGAI ruled that the police officer involved should be suspended for 75 days for infringing rules about the use of firearms. However, the disciplinary punishment was suspended. A criminal investigation was ongoing at the end of the year.
António Pereira, a construction worker in his mid-twenties who was a member of the African Cultural Centre in Setúbal, south of Lisbon, was shot dead in June in the Bela Vista area of the town. He had reportedly tried to intervene in a quarrel between two men. Police officers arrived at the scene and, in circumstances that remained unclear, fired their guns, killing António Pereira and injuring the other men. The shooting was reportedly witnessed by several people. Following the incident, a crowd gathered around the local police station and began throwing stones at the building. There were reports that police reinforcements, called to disperse the crowd, discharged both rubber bullets and live rounds and that, as a result, some people were injured. As a result of António Pereira’s killing, social tension in the area of Bela Vista reportedly heightened, leading to a deepening of the sense of marginalization among the minority community.
Deaths in police custody

At least three people were reported to have committed suicide in police custody. Between December 2001 and January 2002 alone, three people of Ukrainian origin allegedly committed suicide in separate incidents in different police stations. According to reports, two of them were detained in connection with disturbances in public places and had said that they had been threatened by people involved in criminal activities. At least one had asked to be protected by the authorities. AI noted that in the report of its 2001 activities, the IGAI had stated that in several police cells they had visited there were “suspension points” not adequately protected; that some cells had doors with unprotected metallic bars; and that some police cells contained dangerous objects and materials. The location of some detention areas was described as too distant from the police officers on duty for them to respond to requests for help.

Prisons

Following serious episodes of inter-prisoner violence in 2001, which resulted in four prisoners being killed and others being injured in separate incidents, the authorities started to take measures to improve safety in prisons. However, there were continuing concerns about conditions in prisons. There were allegations of ill-treatment by prison officers. Overcrowding continued to be a serious problem, putting prisoners’ safety at risk and resulting in inhuman and degrading conditions in some prisons. Access to physical and mental health care continued to be inadequate, and reports of widespread infectious diseases and a high level of drug trafficking and use raised serious concern.

A report by the Director General of the Prison Service submitted in April to the Minister of Justice referred to a combination of factors that left prisoners at risk. These included: inadequate measures and procedures to ensure the protection of prisoners from inter-prisoner violence; difficulties in ensuring the separation of convicted prisoners from detainees in pre-trial custody at all times; and unhygienic conditions in several prisons, including lack of adequate toilet facilities resulting in the practice of “slopping-out”, regarded as degrading by international monitoring bodies.

The criminal investigation into the killings at the penitentiary of Vale de Judeus (Alcoentre) in October 2001 was ongoing and no charges had been brought at the end of the year. Some reports had implicated custodial staff in the killings.

Racism

In November the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) published its second report on Portugal. ECRI acknowledged a number of positive steps taken by the authorities to combat racism. However, it also noted persisting problems, including the few prosecutions brought under the provision of the criminal code which punishes activities carried out with the intent of inciting or encouraging racial or religious discrimination, hatred or violence; the lack of a general rule providing that racist motives constitute an aggravating circumstance for all offences; some aspects of the asylum application procedure and of the economic and social situation of asylum-seekers awaiting decisions on their cases; and the lack of reliable information about the situation of the various minority groups which live in the country.

ECRI noted that there had been “several reports of law enforcement officials using excessive force against detainees or other persons with whom they have come into conflict, a large proportion of them immigrants or Roma/Gypsies” and that “Roma/Gypsies” were reportedly subjected to “frequent spot checks, humiliating treatment and even ill-treatment at the hands of the police”. ECRI expressed particular concern about allegations that police officers responsible for such acts had gone unpunished and urged the authorities to combat impunity by ensuring that investigations into acts of ill-treatment committed against immigrants and members of the “Roma/Gypsy” community were duly carried out and that those responsible were identified and punished.

AI country visit
In December AI representatives visited Portugal to conduct research.

In 2006, the Instituto de Apoio à Criança (IAC, a government department in charge of monitoring child abuse) registered 31 cases of missing underage (-18 years) persons. 24 of them were found by the police. This is a rate of 77, 43 % of success in finding missing children. Two of them were found to be dead. So let’s put these figures very clear: Portuguese Police has a track record of finding 77, 43 % of missing children, even if 6,45 % of those children were found dead, and 22,58 % are still missing [mainly adolescents running from home]. From those 31 missing children, only 5 [6.45] were between one and five years old.

http://gazetadigitalarquivo.blogspot.co ... ulate.html

Portugal
Trafficking in Human BeingsThere is no specific legislation dealing with the trafficking in human beings. The Penal code contains a few provisions that may serve as a legal ground for the prosecution of traffickers, and other legal acts of relevance to the fight against organized crime provide investigative and prosecution tools that make it easier to punish crimes of trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes. Because of the loopholes and shortcomings in the overall legal framework governing these matters, new legislation is currently under preparation and discussion: first, the Council of Ministers has recently approved a bill to be submitted to the National Parliament, which foresees the punishment of those who assist not only the entry and residence in Portugal, but also the transit of illegal migrants; second, two other bills currently under consideration by the Parliament further amend the Criminal Code and foresee new measures for the protection of victims. Also, on 25 June 2002, the establishment of a National Immigration Plan, which includes amendments to the current legal framework, was announced by the government. Pending the enactment of these measures, the current state of the law with regard to the fight against trafficking in human beings can be summarized as follows.

Article 169 of the Portuguese Criminal Code, amended by the Act 99/2001 of 25 August 2001, has criminalized trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation. Whoever by means of violence, serious threat, deception, fraud, or by the abuse of a position of particular vulnerability, recruits, transports, transfers, harbors, receives a person or creates the conditions for the practice, by a certain person, in a foreign country, of prostitution, shall be sentenced to a term of two- to eight-years imprisonment. The 2001 amendments have broadened the scope of Article 169 by including other forms of sexual exploitation.

Sexual exploitation of children is addressed separately inArticle 176 of the Criminal Code(also revised by Act 99/2001), according to which all those who recruits, transports, provides accommodation or receives a child under 16 years old, or makes arrangement for the child to get into prostitution or the sex industry in general in a foreign country, are sentenced to a term of 1 to 8 years imprisonment. Likewise, the 2001 amendments have widened the scope of this provision, which applies, regardless of the use of violence, threat, fraud or deception, which may be considered tough as aggravating circumstances resulting in imprisonment terms of 2 to 10 years. Other aggravating circumstances include the victim being under 14 year's age or the perpetrator acting professionally or with the intent of making benefits.

Trafficking in human beings for other purposes than sexual exploitation are addressed in other provisions of the penal code, in particular those applying to the criminalization of slavery and slave trade (Article 159), which provide for 5 to 15 years imprisonment.

Another aspect of the prosecution of trafficking is dealt with by theDecree Law 325/95of 2 December 1995, which sets out the legal regime to prevent and combat money laundering. The Act 10/2002 of 11 February 2002 has extended the scope of this act to the crimes of trafficking in human beings.

The Act 93/99 of 14 July 1999 ensures the protection to witnesses in the judicial proceedings involving cases of trafficking in human beings. Its provisions apply to victims and witnesses. Furthermore, Article 87 paragraph 1 of the Decree Law 244/98 foresees the possibility of exempting those foreigners who cooperate in the investigations from the visa requirement to obtain a residence permit. Thus, victims of trafficking can obtain a residence permit if they co-operate with the justice without fear of being deported back to their country of origin. Finally, the Act 5/2002 of 11 January 2002 describes specific measures for combating organized and economic crime, particularly with regard to the gathering of evidence in relation to several crimes, among which the crime of trafficking in children.

The protection of victims as such is addressed in the Act 61/91 of 31 August 1991, which contains general measures aimed at the protection of women victims of violence. Although it does not target women victims of trafficking specifically, the Act 107/99 of 3 August 1999 has some relevance insofar as it dispenses specific measures such as the establishment of a national network of support centres for women victims of violence.

http://www.legislationline.org/?jid=40& ... se&tid=178

Portugal is chiefly a transit and destination area, but. also a major source country for prostitution in .... Trafficking in children and child prostitution

http://www.heuni.fi/uploads/to30c6cjxyah1l.pdf

PORTUGAL: Some Missing Children More Equal than Others
By Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, May 18 (IPS) - Never before has the Portuguese idiom "para o inglês ver" (literally: for the English to see), which means putting on a front to impress outsiders and ward off criticism, been so apt as today in Portugal, when the entire country has its attention riveted on the case of a four-year-old British girl who disappeared from a hotel two weeks ago.

The investigation into the May 3 disappearance of Madeleine McCann from a resort in Portugal's southern Algarve region has come up with few leads and little evidence, despite the unprecedented police effort in a country where kidnappings of local children have gone largely unnoticed.

The saying "para o inglês ver", remarkably pertinent with respect to this case, emerged in Brazil in 1831, when a law was passed prohibiting the importation of slaves under pressure from the British. However, the law was not enforced, and the slave trade continued at a brisk pace in Brazil and in Portugal's African colonies, thus giving rise to the idiom that referred to a law approved merely for the sake of appearance.

Madeleine went missing from her hotel room at the Ocean Club resort in the village of Praia da Luz, where she was sleeping along with her two-year-old twin siblings while their parents had dinner at a poolside tapas bar 40 metres away.

Since then, the British ambassador has gotten involved, and the Judicial Police, with the support of other police forces, has launched a search and investigation operation of a scope never before seen in Portugal, with130 senior officers and 800 beat officers reportedly assigned to the case.

In the last two weeks, the quiet former fishing village of Praia da Luz has been overrun by police officers and their dogs, as well as battalions of British and Portuguese journalists who have set up satellite dishes to broadcast around the clock.

The only suspect investigated so far is Robert Murat, a British resident of Praia da Luz. Also questioned, but as a witness, was Russian computer specialist Sergei Malinka, who helped design a web site for Murat.

Murat's home, near the Ocean Club, was searched by the police, who said they did not arrest him because not enough evidence was found, although tests are still being carried out on objects found in the dwelling.

The police have not been forthcoming with information, and much of the media coverage has been speculation.

The case has triggered a media feeding frenzy and has snowballed into an international cause, in which ordinary citizens, analysts, psychologists, doctors and criminologists have all offered their opinions and advice on radio and television programmes and web logs (blogs).

Some observers point out that Madeleine comes from a well-heeled British family (both of her parents are doctors), unlike so many Portuguese or immigrant children whose disappearance has drawn scant attention from the press.

Brazilian-Portuguese activist Ana Filgueiras told IPS that "the deployment of resources to find the missing girl is laudable, but it is regrettable that the same does not happen in the case of people who are less well-off. In Portugal we have never before seen a mobilisation of this magnitude."

Filgueiras founded the non-governmental Brazilian Centre for the Defence of Children's Rights (CBDDCA) in the 1970s, which drew attention to the killings of street children by military police in Rio de Janeiro.

"Across the globe, but especially in Africa, Latin America and Asia, the kidnapping of children is almost routine, but the phenomenon receives little coverage from media that are more interested in reporting each and every detail of the disappearance of a British girl, even though the case is insignificant in statistical terms," said Filgueiras.

According to UNICEF (the U.N. children's fund), 1.2 million children are trafficked every year around the world.

In Portugal, SOS Criança Desaparecida (SOS Missing Children) of the Instituto de Apoio à Crianza opened 31 new cases last year of missing children, involving 19 girls and 12 boys.

Filgueiras said that when Portuguese children go missing, "no TV station airs photos of the victims," but in Madeleine's case "we are watching a soap opera conceived of to boost ratings and readership to a maximum, by playing on people's feelings."

"If Madeleine were the daughter of parents from Africa, Eastern Europe or even Portugal, would the media have seized on it like this? Would there be so much news, and such an outpouring of concern?" asks someone writing at http://mrsleeves.blogspot.com, a Portuguese language blog.

Another blog, http://insolitos-da-gravata.blogspot.com/, notes that in the case of Joanna, a Portuguese girl who disappeared a year ago, "it took the police several days to start searching, while in this case it took just 30 minutes, and I can't avoid thinking, selfishly, that it was only because she was from a well-off English family, since any of us would have had to wait for 48 hours after the disappearance, as established by law."

The Judicial Police launched the investigation six hours after Kate McCann, Madeleine's mother, reported that her daughter was missing. "Record time in Portugal," said Carlos Anjos, president of the association of criminal investigators, who added, however, that six hours was enough time for the kidnappers to have sped across the border with Spain, just 150 kilometres away.

In his Thursday column in the Público newspaper, the former head of Portugal's bar association, José Miguel Júdice, said the enormous mobilisation was due to the fact that the little girl "is English, white, and the daughter of doctors."

In the cases of the 31 children who went missing last year in Portugal, "we didn't see helicopters or planes chartered by TV stations, or hundreds of police officers and trained dogs," he wrote.

The British and Portuguese media have not reacted this way on other occasions, "and they couldn't care less about reporting on the immense tragedy in (the Sudanese region of) Darfur, because doing so is infinitely more dangerous and brings less audience and readership than describing, live and direct, every single detail of the family drama" in Praia da Luz, Júdice maintained. (END/2007)

Portugal braced as child prostitution ring trial opens


Giles Tremlett and agencies in Lisbon
Friday November 26, 2004
The Guardian


Portugal's highest-profile trial for years began at a Lisbon court yesterday with a leading television presenter, a former ambassador and five others accused of involvement in a child prostitution ring which allegedly abused orphanage children over a period of 20 years.
Carlos Cruz, 62, the chat show host known as Mr Television, arrived at the court looking relaxed as his lawyer warned about the failings of Portugal's judicial system.

"Normally trials produce justice in Portugal," Ricardo Sá Fernandes, told the state news agency, Lusa. "But sometimes they do not."

Mr Cruz faced six charges of sexually abusing or having sex with underage boys from the 224-year-old Casa Pia network of orphanages and schools which looks after 4,500 children.

"I want, and all Portuguese want, that the truth be found in a rapid manner. I've never lied," Mr Cruz said.

Jorge Ritto, 69, a former Portuguese ambassador, faced nine charges of sexually abusing children and two of procuring.

Among the defendants is Manuel Abrantes, a former deputy director at Casa Pia, who faces 51 charges of abuse and child prostitution crimes.

Carlos Silvino, a Casa Pia driver, was allegedly at the centre of the ring, hiring out boys under 14 to people from the social and showbusiness elite.

Mr Silvino, accused of 669 acts of abuse, arrived at court with an armed escort and wearing a bulletproof vest as local media reported death threats against him.

Psychiatrists said yesterday that the 32 alleged victims who would give evidence, some still under 16 years, would be under extreme pressure.

Counsellors appointed by the authorities said they had uncovered 130 cases of abuse at the main Casa Pia home in Lisbon.

The judge said yesterday the case may be transferred to a courthouse better able to deal with a trial with a 13,000-page case file that would last several months and involve about 800 witness.

Paulo Pedroso, a former government minister, against whom charges were dropped after he had spent four months on remand, was not in court. He has suggested he may sue those who accused him while his Socialist party has claimed the charges against him were politically motivated.

The case has shocked Portugal, making some people aware of paedophilia for the first time and throwing into question the way governments have run orphanages.

But its shockwaves have gone further. The police were first informed of abuse at Casa Pia in 1982, while a series of high-profile politicians, including Antonio Ramalho Eanes, a former president, have known about the allegations for 20 years, according to Teresa Costa Macedo, a former secretary of state for families.

Leaks from the investigation have put the judiciary, police and journalists under the microscope.

The attorney-general was forced to state publicly earlier this year that the president, Jorge Sampaio, was not being investigated after the press discovered that an anonymous letter naming him had been included in the evidence. Mr Sampaio made a national television address last year, calling the affair a national disgrace and urging people to trust the legal system.

Joao Correia, vice-president of the bar association, said media coverage and breaches of judicial secrecy had damaged public confidence.

Each conviction for an act of child sex abuse carries a jail term of up to eight years. But the maximum prison term in Portugal is 25 years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0 ... 33,00.html

When clicking on this link scroll down to HAZARDOUS CHILD LABOUR

Street children there is 2500 to 5000

http://www.globalmarch.org/resourcecent ... rtugal.pdf

Child trafficking evil unfolds
2/2/2002

Investigations by THE NEWS, in association with the News of the World, have revealed that 15 to 20 children, with ages ranging from five to twelve, may have been victims of a child trafficking ring operating between Portugal and Britain. The prime suspect is currently being held by Portuguese police....

http://www.the-news.net/cgi-bin/article.pl?id=637-19