By Matthew Pennington
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2000; 8:32 p.m. EDT

BANGKOK, Thailand –– The number of tourists in Asia seeking sex with children is on the rise, and more of the pedophiles are Asians themselves, officials and experts said Tuesday.

Cheaper airfares, the opening of countries once closed because of war or politics, and the advent of the Internet have provided more opportunities for tourists looking for underage sex partners, the experts said.

While countries such as Cambodia and Vietnam have been well known a destinations for such tourists, Thailand, the Philippines and Sri Lanka are gaining similar reputations, said Christine Beddoe of ECPAT, an organization that fights the sexual exploitation of children.

"It's no longer just the key destinations we knew about five years ago," Beddoe said.

At the same time, offenders are increasingly coming from within Asia itself, particularly Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese tourists and businessmen working abroad, Beddoe said.

ECPAT organized a two-day workshop at U.N. regional headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, for representatives from tourism authorities, tourism training institutes and the travel industry to discuss ways to stop sex tourism and sex offenders.

Representatives came from Australia, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

"With organizational support from the tourism industry we can train people to report incidents of exploitation," Beddoe said, noting that it is often tour guides, hotel staff and taxi drivers who are approached by tourists looking for prostitutes.

Progress has been made, child advocates said. Several European airlines are now showing in-flight videos on preventing child sex tourism, for example, and at least 23 countries have laws allowing prosecution of their citizens at home for sex offenses with children overseas.

Yet bringing offenders to justice remains tricky because of difficulties in compiling a court case using child witnesses, who are often either poor or homeless, Beddoe said. A lack of political will in governments and reluctance on the part of the tourist industry is also hampering effective action, she said.

"Many years ago there was not a problem with child sex tourism in our country," said Rafael Relucio, chief of the Philippines +tourist+ police. "But that's because we were not aware of it."