New checks will protect exchange students here

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The families who host the nearly 30,000 foreign exchange students who stay in this country each year now will have to undergo criminal background checks, under new federal rules that went into effect this week.

Under the State Department rules, exchange student programs also will be required to tell the students how to identify and report sexual abuse, and to notify the department and local law enforcement of any reports of abuse.

Advocates cite a number of cases where adult hosts have been accused of abuse, but host families say the change may make some parents think twice about hosting foreign youngsters.

“I think they’re trying too hard,” said Ruth Ingram of Columbia, Mo., who hosted exchange students from New Zealand and Finland with her late husband.

The extent of the abuse problem is difficult to gauge, but many in the industry concede such checks are necessary.

“It’s a sign of the times,” said John Hishmeh, executive director of the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel, an industry accreditation group. “We have to do it, and it makes sense.”

The new State Department rules were publicly proposed last summer and went into effect Thursday. “The safety and security of these participants are of paramount importance to the department,” officials said in a statement in August.

The acting director of the State Department’s Office of Exchange Coordination and Designation, Stanley Colvin, said last year it had received only five reports of abuse.

Among the recently publicized cases was that of Andrew Powers, a high school biology teacher in Gaithersburg, Md., convicted last year of sexual assault involving a 17-year-old German girl who lived in his home. In April, Paul Stone of Berea, Ky., pleaded guilty to sodomizing a 15-year-old Taiwanese girl his family hosted.

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