Sad.In January, British national Sean McMahon, 45, who was teaching English in Bangkok was repatriated to Great Britain on charges that he had raped an 8-year-old girl there.
A month later, Australian Peter William Smith, 48, who taught at a school in Jakarta, Indonesia, was sentenced to 10 years and fined $10,000 by an Indonesian court for engaging in sex with more than 50 boys.
Probably the most publicized arrest of a teacher accused of preying on children came in August 2006, when American John Mark Karr, who confessed to -- and was later exonerated for -- the 1996 murder of Jon Bennet Ramsey was picked up in Thailand. Karr's case spotlighted the ease with which sexual predators could find work in the region's schools.
Karr lost his California teaching license in 2001 for possessing child pornography but had nevertheless taught at three Thai elementary schools.
"While some men pay for sex, teaching offers the perfect venue for access to others. ... These men are highly manipulative and experienced. … Schoolchildren are simply sitting ducks. There are lots of cultural mores about welcoming foreigners and many cultural taboos about complaining about teachers."
-- Rosalind Prober