Posts Tagged ‘DrugsAdd new tag’

Truckies target under-age girls for sex

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

Sarah Smiles; 21/6/08

Truck drivers are buying sex from Aboriginal girls under 16 in several states, an Australian Crime Commission investigation has revealed. The use of contraceptive implants among indigenous girls – known as “slut sticks” – has also found to be widespread, particularly among 12-year-olds, “making them a target of sexual attention”. In May, an ACC taskforce visited 142 communities across Australia, including the Northern Territory as part of the federal intervention to curb child sex abuse. The taskforce found convicted child sex offenders working with children; children as young as seven experimenting with sex toys; and children trading sex for petrol and food. Prominent families and service providers were found abusing power and community leaders were implicated in abuse.

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Winning the Afghan opium war

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

James Emery; 6/5/08

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the export value of Afghanistan’s opium production was about $4 billion last year, of which 24 percent went to those working at the lower to middle end of the opium chain. The bulk of the money goes to regional and international trafficking organizations that have ties with the Taliban, terrorists, and multinational criminal organizations. “Counter-narcotics is one of the key challenges,” said Ashraf Haidari, political counselor at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C. “I think that unless we resolve the narcotics problem, it can undo many of our achievements, especially the governance and the rule of law. Narcotics traders are corrupting everyone that is not paid well; the police primarily, but also the judicial system up to institutions that constitute the face of the government.”

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