A/HRC/22/54 gender of the child and may not view sexual contact with children as harmful. 18 In contrast to the situational offender, they are notorious reoffenders, seeking out vulnerable children. 28. It has, however, been noted that individuals do not usually fit clearly into one category or another and there may be a real danger in trying to simplify their profiles given the complexity of the issue. Most importantly, one must bear in mind that the exploitation taking place may have different facets. CEOP, for example, has started using the following behavioural typologies, which were developed on the basis of first-hand research and practical work with travelling child sex offenders: “opportunity instigation” (taking advantage of holiday environments to abuse children), “self-contained abuse” (travelling abroad in the company of intended child victims), “speculative exploring” (travelling abroad to locations where children are reported to be available for sex), “informed networking” (arranging in advance to abuse children at a specific location), “resident foreigner abuse”(abuse by foreigner resident in developing countries), “pseudo-care work”(professionals and volunteers abusing the children with whom they work),19 “Internet-facilitated offending overseas” (using the Internet to abuse children in foreign countries).20 How do these offenders obtain access to children? 29. The abusers can gain access to children in a variety of ways: directly approaching the child on the streets, the beach, in schools or centres for children, through the child’s family and relatives or through an intermediary on the beach, in hotels and guesthouses, karaoke clubs and brothels. A more recent phenomenon is accessing children via the Internet, either directly through online chat forums (“grooming”), or through intermediaries. These intermediaries facilitating the contact with children on the ground are often connected to tourism services, including transport and accommodation. Others may be holding a child in a situation of exploitation and make the child available to the tourist in exchange of payment or may themselves be offenders sharing their access or practical information. 30. The process will depend on the length of the stay, the type of accommodation that the abuser is using, the local context and the situation in which the child is at that time. When the abuser is a foreign resident or long-term visitor, he can engage directly in a long grooming process to befriend a child, thereby obtaining his or her trust before exploiting the child sexually. The grooming process can include the family, whereby the abuser either gains their trust or negotiates a mutually agreeable arrangement, whereby the parents may either sell or rent their child. 31. Significant progress has been made in combating CST and, in this regard, big hotel chains are no longer a concern in many locations compared to smaller hotels and guesthouses. In addition, an increasing number of tourists are renting or owning property, thereby having access to a private venue in which to exploit children, reducing the risk of being detected by hotel staff, other tourists or concerned locals. 21 Case studies also show that paedophiles seem to operate mostly from private homes. Abusers and facilitators will continue to find alternative solutions when hindered in their undertakings. 18 19 20 21 8 ECPAT International, Sexual exploitation, p. 12. Teaching and employment in roles that provided access to children accounted for between 7–19 per cent of the cases between 2006-2011 (CEOP, “CEOP launch a new way to prevent UK child sex offenders from abusing children overseas”, press release, 18 October 2012).. See Mentor Forensic Services established by Joe Sullivan, 2011. ECPAT International, Sexual exploitation, p. 17.

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