MANILA - The world's police forces are floundering as transcontinental operators peddle impoverished Third World children via cyberspace in the fast global-trading environment, experts said yesterday. 

Groups are "subverting" the Internet to traffic women and children, and ease of travel has enabled paedphiles to move from one country to another, experts said on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific conference on crime held in Manila.

Before the advent of cyberspace, organisations used to operate by mail or advertise sex with children in the newspapers.

"But recently they found the Internet. So they have their little chat rooms where each can go to," said Paul Higdon, director of Interpol's liaison and criminal intelligence directorate, based in Lyon, France.

"It's a coded area within the Internet, and they can talk and exchange ..."

But policing the Internet is "very difficult", he said. 

"We're trying to get a handle on that now. We're trying to understand better how these people operate. We're in touch with local-area providers...getting help from them...," he said.

Higdon said the frequency of air travel had also allowed paedophiles to go from one country to another. 

"On a transnational nature, by the very virtue of airplane travel, it's so easy now to cross borders that frequently, "he said.

"In the light of that, where crimes used to be committed at a national level, now you have crimes being committed across borders very frequently, and paedophilia is certainly one of those crimes, he added.

But he said "there's a lot of people from the more developed countries going to the less developed countries because of the economic situation" and "there are countries where parents even sell their children to paedophile groups".

 Dealing with groups engaged in the trafficking of women and children is just like handling other crime gangs, Higdon said, noting successful prosecution of suspects rested on evidence gathered by an extensive intelligence network.