This archive report was first published on 9 July 2020.
On July 9, 2020, a French retiree, Francois Abello Camille, was arrested in Jakarta, Indonesia, on charges of molesting hundreds of children.
According to authorities, Camille, 65, had entered Indonesia on a tourist visa several times over the past five years and had been luring children into sex acts by offering them work as models.
Police found videos on Camille's laptop computer that showed him engaging in illegal sex acts with hundreds of children aged between 10 and 17.
"He would approach children and lure them by offering them work as models," Jakarta police chief Nana Sudjana said. "The ones who agreed to have sex with him would get paid between 250,000 and one million rupiah ($17-70). Those who didn't want to have sex would be beaten, slapped and kicked by the suspect," he added.
Camille could face life in prison or even execution by firing squad if he is convicted on a raft of charges under Indonesia's child protection laws.
As many as 70,000 children are victims of sexual exploitation annually in Indonesia, according to global anti-trafficking network ECPAT International.
