Paedophiles barred from Indonesia

Scores of Australian paedophiles barred from Indonesia but fears more slip through net

Updated 19 May 2016, 4:56am

Photo: Robert Ellis faces up to 15 years in jail for the sexual abuse of 16 girls in Bali. (ABC News: Samantha Hawley)
Related Story: Australian paedophile found working at Thailand school
Map: Indonesia
More than 100 convicted Australian sex offenders tried to enter Indonesia between November 2014 and the end of last year, documents obtained by the ABC show.

Key points:

• Immigration and AFP alert Indonesia when a convicted Australian paedophile is travelling there
• Offenders are turned away at airports
• NGO worker says Balinese community needs higher awareness of the dangers of paedophilia

They were turned away at airport borders as part of an arrangement between Indonesian and Australian authorities.

Under the agreement, Australian immigration officers and the Australian Federal Police alert Indonesia when a convicted paedophile is travelling to their jurisdiction.

The list, leaked to the ABC, shows the Australians' names, passport and flight numbers and date of travel to Indonesia.

Bali's police chief, Inspector General Sugeng Priyanto, has described paedophilia on the holiday island as an "iceberg" phenomenon: some offenders appear on the surface, but the real number is much larger.

"These paedophilia cases have to be stopped. That's why the police are taking two steps," he said.

"First is prevention, the other is repressive. Prevention is done through a campaign about the dangers for the under-aged, the repressive is done through law enforcement."

Australian man faces 15 years in jail over 16 offences
The ABC was granted access to the Bali police prison in Denpasar to film an Australian man facing serious child sex crime allegations.

Robert Andrew Fiddes Ellis, 69, is accused of shocking sexual abuse of at least 16 girls aged between seven and 17 over two years from 2014.

The ABC has confirmed he had no prior convictions in Australia and so Indonesian authorities were not alerted before his arrival in Bali.

Denpasar's prosecutor's office said the Australian had admitted guilt and faced up to 15 years in jail.

One of his alleged victims, known as Sekar, works at a local food market but barely makes enough to survive.

Photo: Sekar says she was paid by Ellis. (ABC News: Samantha Hawley)
Ellis allegedly lured his victims off Bali's Kuta beach and gave them clothing, bikes and money.

He then allegedly took them to his home and bathed and sexually assaulted them.

"He gave me 100,000 rupiah, the biggest was 300,000 and I went there once and he gave me 250,000 (about $25)," Sekar told the ABC.

"At Kuta beach I was showering and he asked me to go with him. I went to his house in the afternoon and didn't go home until the morning."

Investigation expected to uncover more victims
Police Chief Priyanto said he believed there could be more victims.

"There are 16 alleged victims of Robert Ellis, but the real number is more than that," he said.

"The investigation process is still going on. We will try to look for the link, whether this is part of an international syndicate or he's just solo."

Lu Anggraeni, from Lentera Anak Bali, an NGO that helped uncover the alleged abuse, said she believed Ellis's history in Bali dated back to 2010, although the allegations against him arose over two years from 2014.

Photo: Lu Anggraeni says the Balinese community is not aware of the dangers. (ABC News: Samantha Hawley)
"The victims told us they showered with him and he bathed them. They were naked and he touched them," she said.

"There was one that said 'it hurts', but he said 'it's OK, I'll buy you presents'."

Lu Anggraeni said the Balinese community did not have a high enough awareness of the dangers of paedophilia.

"They don't know that the paedophiles' approach is grooming these kids," she said.

"I have told people in the tourism sector, if the hotel receptionist sees a foreigner with a street kid, please be aware."

 

This makes me sick in the gut, i posted it because if there is that many there how many have slipped through the net here. or better still what net.

 

Oh Dear on and on it Goes but just what is the Answer are we again looking at Convicted men in their own Countries having their passport Stamped to an effect or not being able to hold a passport, Sure wish I had the answer. comes to mind here.

 

Indonesia never had a problem until they changed to visa on entry , before that it was not all that easy to get into indo. i have said before and got howled down that maybe the Philippines stop visa on entry . I think people that are coming hear for the right reasons would not mind spending time on line to get a visa.

 

First off, I'm ok with pedophiles being executed, I don't think anyone can accuse me of being soft on the issue. I can't recall an instance of a dead pedophile committing the crime again, it is 100% effective.

The above said. My home town in Texas, it's rather iffy if a prosecutor would take a case involving a 17 year old. The fact that the guy was paying them also would be a factor. They were out in public and he didn't kidnap them. I think there is poverty and a teenage prostitution problem also. I think that rather than let people travel to a country to be turned away isn't a good idea unless it is a security test. They should be declared PNG and not even allowed to board a plane if for no other reason than closing off the possibility that they may just slip through. I am sometimes stunned by what people think is a good idea.

 

How about an online fully public database of every convicted pedophile and listed by the country they come from and the country convicted it. Would be interesting to say the least.

I'll agree with Robert though, chop off their dongs and balls and let them bleed out. Problem solved. However would need a fairly strong safety margin of what exactly qualifies. Is having sex with a 17 year old pedophilia as some say it is but really it isn't and then also would require solid proof that sexual acts happen and not instances of someone having a 12 year old kid in their house that wasn't blood related or van. Plenty of cases of good people doing good deeds that get mistaken. Remind me of a story I don't recall well of a foreigner here in Dumaguete accused of being a pedo because he gave local kids that weren't his a ride to school and from what I heard there was was no evidence of such nonsense claims either.

I'd also say I'd keep the death penalty to actual pedo's, not cases of 16/17 year olds and such as plenty of times those may very well look much older (I knew a 14 year old girl who was a nearby neighbor who one would swear was 19).

 

Pedophillipines? Pedofilipino?

How many of these people are leaving because they are facing persecution in their home countries?

My problem with this attitude towards the issue is that it squeezes out any possibility of understanding and treating the problem. It's such a taboo subject that nobody even wants to talk about it or study it. The scientific community can't even touch (haha) it.

It's a similar issue to illegal drugs. These drugs could have legit medical uses but nobody can touch them because they are so highly regulated. Then people who get hooked on them are criminals when they should be receiving therapy.

Pedophiles aren't going away. There are probably a lot more of them out there than we realize. They should have ways to get treatment and deal with their problems.

The best part of this story is the sharing of info between these two countries. That's a great step in dealing with all kinds of issues. Though I don't like the idea of being restricted to travel based on a criminal record. In some cases, this record could be fabricated to intentionally cause problems for people.

If you want to burn these people alive, I'll bring marshmallows. But if we really want to fix it, we need to beak it open, study it, understand it and then do something which has a chance of fixing it. The same way you approach any other problem.

 

Are you trying to say that you don't want to come over to my house to pick up the shiny new bike I bought you?

 

Can't be bothered with this cut n paste thing, but I'll add my ha'ppence worth. First of all kids need protection, we can't afford to let anyone to become a victim. It ruins lives.

Second Paedophilia is not categorised as a mental disorder either in DSM-V or ICD 10. It is however under close, intense and rigorous scrutiny/investigation by the scientific community. My field is picking up the pieces of the victims.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imagery (FMRI, photographing the brain approx 50 times per sec) studies consistently reveal that with paedophiles several important brain centres concerned with empathy, moral judgement, impulse regulation, risk taking and the relationship to anxiety are not as 'lit up' as compared to normal control subjects . Empathic skills, moral judgement, risk taking and impulse control are developmentally acquired.

For example, empathy develops around the age of 3-5, natch, it's about this time we train our kids to 'pat the doggie' and 'not be cruel' or 'play nicely with Johnie as he won't like it when you.....'

So, in circumstances where there is absence of this training, maybe when a child grows up in circumstances of this type of deprivation or sudden abrupt regular violence; simply put the synapses do not make the necessary links. Result: absence of these developmentally acquired skills. It doesn't occur with everyone, nor is it the same as saying "mom sent me to bed without supper when I was 3, so let me off Your Honour" - but the relationship between extreme abuse or deprivation though in its infancy is more and more reliably proven.

So what to do? Hang em, flog em, whip em? I think it is more complex than a lot of folks here suggest. Acquired developmental disability or brain damage is not a mental disorder. If killing them is the answer then I feel very sorry for the world. Yes, we need protection, our kids need protecting. But simple reactionary populist views do injustice to a lot of adult victims. I won't go so far as to suggest that Uncle Adolfs programme to euthanise those with Downs Syndrome or a Learning Disability in the 1930s is similar to calls today to kill the paedo...but hey, as science develops the parallels become obvious.

Doc C out,

Cheers