Backpackers prey on Asian English craze

Bangkok Aug 20 (AP):

The English- teaching circuit in Asia is filled with transients. It is a floating network of backpackers looking to make quick cash while travelling the world, recent college graduates in search of overseas experience and those on the move with something to hide.

In the region that hungers to learn the language equated with opportunity and success, the demand for native- speaking English teachers far outweighs supply in many countries.

Turnover is high and screening is minimal as many languages centres, opening windows for many candidates with phony credentials or even those suspended from teaching at home – like JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr – to skip unnoticed into classrooms across Asia.

“A telephonic interview, a resumé and a picture of the candidate is all we have,” said Kim Soo-ho, an official at English work, a teacher recruiting agency in Seoul, South Korea. “It is physically difficult to check the background of people when they are overseas.

Karr, 41 taught for a few months in South Korea. In 2002, Honduras in 2005 and at schools in Bangkok this year before his arrest last week by Thai officials. He has said he was with JonBenet when the 6-year-old child beauty queen died 10 years ago in her Colorado basement in one of America’s most haunting unsolved crimes.

According to an online resume, Karr also worked as a private teacher and caregiver in Germany, the Netherlands and Costa Rica from 2001. In April of that same year, he was arrested in California for possession of child pornography and vanished after serving six months in jail.

His teaching license was suspended a year later. Now, Karr is being detained in a Thai immigration jail pending deportation to the US.

Convicted sex offenders from various countries have popped up in Asia as English teachers. Earlier this month, an Australian who taught English in Indonesia was arrested and accused of molesting street children. He told police he video taped at least 50 teenage boys. Another Australian teacher who faced sex allegations at home committed suicide last week in Indonesia, where he was also accused by human right activists of abusing children.

"It's a very traditional pedophile strategy," said Bernadette McMenamin, CEO of the Australian advocacy group Child Wise "If you want to sexually abuse children, what better job would be there?”

She said foreign teachers with criminal histories can easily stay beneath the radar because background information is not readily shared between countries, making the screening process difficult for even the most prestigious institutions.

“People who are offenders of all sorts are being able to move anonymously across borders,” said Carmen Madrinan, executive irector of Bangkok – based ECPAT International, a network of organisations working to fight sexual exploitation of children