A UN forum is calling for child sex tourists to be prosecuted in their home countries.

From the AP (via Google News):

Tourists who go abroad to abuse children should face the prospect of prosecution in their home countries if they are caught having sex with kids in nations with lax penalties, participants at a U.N.-backed conference concluded Friday.

Sweden already has such a law, and about 3,000 experts plus government representatives from 137 nations backed the concept at the Third World Congress against Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents in Rio de Janeiro.

Their final declaration called for nations to establish laws allowing stiffer prosecution of child sex cases for perpetrators who take trips to nations with few or no penalties because they know they’ll face little if any retribution, said Nils Kastberg, UNICEF’s director for Latin America and the Caribbean.

“Many of these pedophiles tell each other, ‘Oh, don’t worry if something happens to you in that country, the worst that will happen is you’ll pay a fine,’” Kastberg said in a telephone interview.

Participants are now expected to go to their home countries and lobby governments for the law changes.