The Archipelago of Shame Sex Tourism and Paedophilia. Preface to the English version by Mr. Francesco Frangialli

Every year a million children on our vulnerable planet are exploited for sexual and pornographic purposes, bartered or sold like slaves to meet the unflagging demand of those predators of the innocent, the paedophiles, playing an ever growing part in the vast world of sexual tourism. In fact, the data on this grim phenomenon show it spreading ever wider, with increasingly disquieting future prospects and an appalling escalation in blood-chilling episodes. The last few years have seen the veil lifted from this honor, the centuries-long silence broken with the media giving ample coverage to episodes of paedophilia and sexual tourism, shaking public opinion and showing just how serious the problem is. We can now see quite clearly that there is a symbiosis at work between paedophilia and organized crime, which has taken over control of the market exploiting the innocence of children and the poverty of their families. These criminal organizations have created a variety of illicit business systems, hoarding dirty money and using banks and financial institutions to launder it. With the earnings of this market they have been able to work their way into the business world and the stock markets, spreading corruption to an extent that threatens to undermine the credibility of these institutional structures. In this volume the author delineates the historical-sociological-juridical scenario of the phenomenon in its millenary perspective: from abnormal practices to repeated abuse in the course of the centuries, from incest to analysis of deviance, and from pornography to the Internet and current legislation. The author does not set out to demonise a priori the people guilty of this offence, but stresses rather the urgent need to recover the genuine values of civilization, with the prevention of paedophilia ideally based on clear ethical and scientific criteria.