00.00
| At sea looking to Goree. Music begins |
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00.02 | Shots of Goree, street life | Gorée - an island of exploitation. For over 400 years Gorée was a market place for slaves. Millions were shipped from here to America, Europe and Brazil. These days, anyone who travels to Senegal in West Africa usually visits Gorée. UNESCO has declared it a world cultural heritage site.
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00.29 | shot of museum, red washed walls, pan to window and sea | This used to be a slave prison. Today, it's a museum. Empty rooms where local people were once imprisoned. Through this door they were led to the ships. Today, Gorée is back in the headlines - this time as a playground for paedophiles.
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00.46
| original sound Aly, 15 years old
| One day I met a man who asked me to go to his place. He put money on the bed. He asked me to do things with him. I refused and then I went and warned the police about him. I wasn't sure if I should report him as a homosexual or something. But then I saw him on the beach with a little boy and he was flirting with us too. And, after that he was sent away from Gorèe. |
01.19
| Aly at port, boat of tourists landing. Aly approacing them | Aly was 13 years old then. Boys make the acquaintance of white men as they leave the ferry which crosses between the capital of Dakar and Gorée. Many boys have left school - just like Aly. They earn their money as guides to the island. The paedophiles tempt the boys with offers of a meal in a restaurant. Presents then follow. Aly got trainers and t-shirts from his paedophile. Then came the offer for sex.
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01.59
| Aly, 15 years
| There are a lot of people who point the finger at you. If you speak out, the homosexual will go and talk to the police. It's you that's going to get caught. He's got more means than you because he's richer. As far as I'm concerned there's no law in Senegal.
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02.19 | MM going up to door | Trying to meet a paedophile face to face we knocked at this door, filming with a hidden camera. A German man lives here. For years he's reputedly been living with a Senegalese boy, who's now an adult. But we were told we'd just missed him, and that he wouldn't be back in Gorée for 3 months.
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02.42
| Seringe walking into centre | Serigne Mor Mbaye is a psychologist in Dakar. Because he criticised paedophiles he has been attacked by the authorities who fear a dip in their revenues from tourists.
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02.52
| Original souond Serigne Mor Mbaye, psychologist
| When people are in shock they can't talk. They feel ashamed and guilty. Gorée is a landmark of our country. But everyone knows about the paedophiles and I believe they are going to fight back. But the perversity with which paedophiles are buying people off and establishing networks leads to enormous feelings of guilt. People have told me they would never believe so-and-so could abuse a child.
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03.21
| Papers, headlines of paedophile cases. Shot of report - another form of slavery. | He licked our genitals. With statements like these from some children, a few paedophiles have been convicted. But too few. This psychologist is running an awareness campaign to help children. He usually meets a wall of silence. An author who wrote an article on peadophilia entitled ‘In Gorée - Another Form of Slavery' - was also heavily criticised.
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03.45
| MM talking to man at door | This man is supposed to have had sex with several minors. I'm not interested, he tells us. They should round up all the paedophiles in Europe first.
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03.55 |
| Paedophiles feel safe here. It's hard to prove their guilt. They must be reported to the police or be caught in flagranti.
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04.04 | Original sound Thioro Gueye, restaurant owner
| I've never seen him with a woman. It's possible because he has got a workshop. Lots of people work for him, lots of kids too. I don't know what they do. That we can't find out. But the fact is he works with a lot of kids.
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04.24 | market, boy on street, women singing outside | That goes for all the paedophiles living here. Thioro Gueye has run a restaurant here for 26 years. Like all the residents she's fed up with the talk about the paedophiles on Gorée. It could hurt tourism. Others are also reluctant to talk to us.
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04.42 | Original sound Mariettu Diouf island resident
| Really we should arrest them. But we don't. Whether it's the police or the imman. Nobody says anything.
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04.53 | Mariettu in house | Mariettu only wanted to be filmed in her house. She didn't want anybody to know she'd spoken to us. That would cause her problems. What does she think about paedophiles on the island?
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05.06 | Original sound Mariettu Diouf
| They are bad people. Really we should kill them.
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| Question: Why is everybody silent about it?
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05.19 | Original sound Mariettu Diouf
| They don't say anything because of money. If you give out money you can do what you want here.
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05.27 | shots on beach, playing in water |
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05.43 | boy singing to two white men on beach | The whites have got what the Senegalese don't have. Power and money. So, they play the role of a clown - and often that of the lover. The psychologist agrees:
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05.56 | Original sound Serigne Mor Mbaye psychologist
| The extreme poverty of the population allows them to be compromised quite easily and become accomplices. The perversity of paedophiles is that they go so far as to buy people and buy their silence because these people here are in an extremely precarious economic situation so they cannot talk - you must understand that. Another aspect is that Senegalese law isn't sufficient. A Canadian paedophile was recently condemed and admitted guilt. He was fined one million CFA francs.
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06.31 |
| A million CFA's is about 3'000 US dollars. But paedophiles could be sent to jail for 10 years. That's the law. Even here in refuges for street kids, many children are forced to have sex.
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06.46 | kids play fighting, girl filing iron, kids working iron | The general secretary of the Raoul Follereau Foundation in France supported this home. François Le Fort came here in 1993. He'd organised seminars in Europe to help the street kids. He promised the children here a trip to France - if they had sex with him.
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07.02 |
| Moussa Sow is the director of the home. A qualified welder, he trusted the Frenchman until the children started telling him about his sexual advances. He brought a court case against Le Fort in France.
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07.16 | Original sound Moussa Sow director, street kids home
| He introduced himself to me as a crusader against paedophilia. I quickly found out that he was worse than the people he said he was fighting against. That was just a pretext because in reality he himself was abusing some of our kids. And there's plenty of proof.
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07.37 | boy in darkened room reading | v/o When he was 12 years old, this former street kid was persuaded to have sex with the Frenchman. The victim's identity has to be disguised.
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07.48 | Original sound paedophile victim Darkened room, speaking in front of window. | Le Fort asked me if I'd had sex with a boy before. I said no. He asked me if I wanted to have sex with him. I said no. He said ‘ If you do it with me, then I'll take you with me to France.' So I said yes. So we went to his room - it was about 10 o'clock in the morning. We made love. Afterwards he gave me 2'500 CFA francs. The second time was that day at about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. He passed by the home and he gave me a signal to follow him. We went to the hotel room and did it again. Then he gave me 4'000 CFA francs.
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08.37 | Walking though park. | That's about 8 US dollars. Each time they had sex he was given more money. This boy was also sexually abused by Le Fort for many years.
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08.45 |
| They were together in France. In the evenings they watched porno films.
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08.50 | Original sound paedophile victim MM with victim by tree, dusk
| He said he wanted to sleep with me. I asked why. He said, ‘Nothing, I just want you to do to me what we saw on the film. Then I got angry with him and I was angry for a while. So he said ‘OK, I won't ask you again but don't tell Moussa'. He said if I did tell he'd get into trouble and the money transfers to the refuge would be stopped. Then my friends would be back on the streets.
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09.28 | kids working on wrought iron | Since the accusations were made against François Le Fort the Follereau Foundation has stopped payments to the home. The Frenchman is still free. Le Fort's followers offered the children two million CFA francs if they dropped their claims against him. But they refused. They'd suffered too much.
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09.45 | Original sound Serigne Mor Mbaye psychologist
| Those kids feel shame about their bodies. They are suspicicious of their teachers. Some of them have nightmares. Some of them even want to go back on the streets - they have a feeling of agressiveness towards adults. That's why I say this is a threat to society.
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10.06 | Aly rapping in front of Museun with friend | Aly dreams of leaving Goree one day and becoming a star. He's one of the few boys who've turned down offers from paedophiles. He went to the police. But how long can this 16 year-old resist the tempation of money and promises of a better life? It's already too late for many of Senegal's young men, victims of arguably one of the worst crimes known to man. Victims once again of the white man. |
11.00 |
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