A mother and her child wait for Sunday mass to begin in a Catholic church in Tarawa. The heads of the two major churches in Kiribati have renewed criticism of local women boarding foreign fishing vessels. The church leaders said they are worried about the spread of prostitution.
A baby sleeping in a Betio slum. The problem of increasing prostitution is linked to a number of factors. An ever-increasing youth population, crowded housing conditions, lack of employment and educational opportunities has left young people vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation, either for cash, transport, food or other material goods.
A traditional Kiribati dance.
"Linda" gets a ride back from a Taiwanese fishing boat after several days of serving as a sex worker on the ship. The problem of increasing prostitution is linked to a number of factors, forcing many children and young people vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation, either for cash, transport, food or other material goods.
Linda, 21, a sexworker who says she spends days and nights on visiting purse seiners in the Tarawa harbour. Kiribati may be breaching international conventions on child protection since many of the sexworkers are only 14 and 15 years of age.
The deck of the Taiwanese purse-seiner bustles with activity. At
anchor a few kilometres off Tarawa in Kiribati, tons of skipjack
tuna are lifted from a refrigerated hold up onto the sweltering
topdeck for transhipment to a ship moored beside it. Whistles blow,
nets of shimmering fish are raised and swung onto the mothership,
which will take its cargo to canneries in Papua New Guinea and
Taiwan.
But look closer and another small transhipment is also taking
place between the two rolling boats. A young girl is gingerly
easing herself down thick ropes from the mothership onto the
purse-seiner. It is a delicate balancing act 20 metres above water
and for a moment she looks like a trapeze artist, walking the
tightrope. She smiles at one of the Taiwanese crew as she drops
like a cat onto the deck and disappears into a nearby cabin. Here
in Kiribati she is known as a "korakorea" girl; a girl who spends
time with fishermen.
Not as romantic as it seems
In the Pacific, the practice of sweet young girls paddling out
to foreign boats to introduce their charms to restless seamen is
nothing new, it is almost a cliché of Pacific history. European
sailors were fond of dropping anchor in places like Tahiti knowing
they would be "warmly welcomed" after long and lonely months at
sea. Such women helped cause mutiny on the Bounty, and much else to
inspire romantic notions in Europe that the Pacific islands were an
Eden of sorts.
Although the practice continues today, there is little romance
and far more dangers involved for the girls - the spectre of AIDS
and social/psychological consequences of girls as young as 12
involved gives the fishing industry a dark side that is rarely
contemplated when consumers open a tin of tuna.
In reality, there are growing social consequences as a result of
a rapacious fishing industry worth an estimated US$2.7 billion per
year. More than half the world's tuna, about 2 million tons per
year, now comes from the Pacific region.
Why the world is coming to the Pacific for fish
The Pacific ocean holds the world's last great fish supply -
since many of the world's oceans have been substantially overfished
in recent decades. The EU, after enforcing a moratorium on cod
fishing in the Atlantic which put much of the European fleet on dry
dock, has recently signed a number of bi-lateral deals with Pacific
island states to fish in their waters.
Europe now sources much of its tuna from the Pacific - in
Germany, for example, half the tuna consumed there comes from
Kiribati alone. The EU fleet now joins China, Taiwan, Japan,
Russia, America, The Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and others
who are ranging far into the Pacific, often unmonitored, to harvest
schools of fish (mainly tuna) on an industrial scale.
Korakorea girls
As in most places, prostitution is
hardly a modern phenomenon. In Kiribati, the term "korakorea" was
first coined to describe local girls who went aboard Korean fishing
vessels, but is now more generally used for girls going onboard
fishing boats from any country as well as being slang for "cheap
fish".
Many do it because of poverty at home and the chance to earn
money, clothes and fish to take home. Some girls get pressured by
their families to do it. Others claim they do it so they can get
"drinking money for their friends" and because the foreign
fishermen treat them better than their local men do.
There is no law against prostitution in Kiribati, which was
highlighted recently when 80 girls were rounded up and brought
before a local court before being released. Yet there is growing
concern that Kiribati maybe breaching international conventions on
child protection since many of the girls are only 14 and 15 years
of age. UNICEF is preparing to release a damning document relating
to underage prostitution in several Pacific countries, including
Kiribati.
Kathy
One girl involved in the trade, "Kathy", claims girls as young
as 12 are involved.
"I know about one 12 year old girl who was taken out to a
fishing boat by her aunty and she has disappeared. Her family are
very worried since she has been missing now for 4 months".
Kathy is a pretty 21 year old girl who lives with her father, an
unemployed former government worker, in a crowded settlement near
the Betio port on south Tarawa. She claims there are many local
girls involved in the trade and they all have different
motivations.
"It all depends because some they really need money to support
their families with food, so they feel some pressure. Other girls
need money to buy drinks for themselves and friends when they want
to go out to the bars".
Kathy says that even though their have been crackdowns by local
authorities the girls are not scared of getting caught by police
because "their family are supporting them".
Taking advantage of history and attitudes
This is what makes prostitution in
Kiribati and other Pacific islands a complex issue. For many
Pacific cultures it is not a big deal; sex, custom and fishing are
all intertwined, subject to tabus. Many islanders do not view such
exchanges as "prostitution". Fishing and sex have long been linked
to traditions that were, in itself, not necessarily a bad thing,
because everything was shared within communities and remote islands
needed "new blood" to prevent inbreeding and keep the tribe strong
to defend from raiding enemies. Ritual exchanges of things like
fish and women kept the peace among neighbours.
In Kiribati, as a recent UNICEF document points out,
prostitution is not new.
"In 1826 prostitutes were referred to as Nikiranroro, meaning
those who had lost their virginity or had eloped. Whalers were much
criticised and blamed for having increased prostitution in the
islands...and that venereal disease was said to have been more
widespread after whaling contacts".
Modern times
As President of the Kiribati National
Council of Women (AMAK), Mere agrees the korakorea issue is a
complex one, but believes that young girls should be in school and
better guided by their parents or guardians.
"It is an issue here because it is against our culture and
tradition. In the olden days, at age 14 or 15, girls were kept in
the home doing work that assured your future life as a woman and
they were very restricted in their night time outings. But now
Kiribati is in the swell of globalisation and the issue of
korakorea...well, that's how things happen now."
Modernity, a cash economy and the loss of tradition has created
new vulnerabilities for coastal communities of the Pacific. Legal
and illegal fishing by foreign vessels have introduced a range of
social problems apart from the environmental impact of depleted
fish stocks. Mere believes there is a "dangerous cycle" linking
alcohol abuse, violence, sexual abuse and disease that is
afflicting many Pacific nations including her own.
Communities that once shared everything now find a new rich/poor
divide is splitting them and AIDS is an ever present danger.
According to the HIV AIDS clinic at Tarawa General Hospital,
Kiribati (population 92,000) has 43 confirmed AIDS cases of which
26 have already died.
"I'd say almost all the cases of AIDS here are related to the
fishing industry" claims one of the nurses testing blood samples.
"It is coming from both foreign fishermen and our own sailors
returning home".
More enforcement tools needed
David Yee Ting, Kiribati's Permanent
Secretary for Fisheries, claims that the government is getting on
top of the situation, saying, "Our new Police Commissioner has been
enforcing the laws to stop girls - and those who help them - go out
to the boats."
He confirms that the situation got so bad that for a period in
2003, Kiribati actually banned all Korean fishing boats from
entering Kiribati ports after reports in the Korean Herald that
30-50 girls, mostly underage, were servicing the Korean
fishermen.
Asked whether he thought Kiribati was also getting ripped off on
its core asset, fisheries, Ting says "That's a bit harsh, but yes,
we could be getting a better return. We only have one patrol boat
and we don't have many trained fisheries officers who can be
stationed on boats to monitor catches."
"But as Pacific states come together through regional bodies
like the FFA (Forum Fisheries Authority, based in Solomon Islands)
and the WCPFC (Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission,
based in Marshall Islands), I believe we will have more collective
power to get a better deal on our fish resources".
Ting is upbeat about the recent deal signed between the EU and
Kiribati, believing the EU will help develop the local industry
with more local employment and training. Other observers are not so
sanguine:
"I don't think we should have vessels from 5,000 miles away
fishing here. Why are they fishing here? Because they have stuffed
their own region and now they are coming down here to do it" is the
blunt assessment of Captain David Lucas, manager of Solander
Pacific Fiji.
"We've got purse-seiners from the European Union fishing in
Kiribati. Why should they be down here? What have they done to
their own? Who's next?"