Is tourism a cause of child prostitution?

STOCKHOLM (JP): Since 1960, world-wide travel has increased more than sevenfold -- about half the travelers are seeking recreation. The number of international tourist arrivals across the world in 1995 was estimated at 567 million. This is expected to rise to 967 million by 2010.

International tourism has become the number one earner of foreign currency in world trade (ahead of petroleum, vehicles, electronic goods, etc.). About 200 million people work in the travel and tourism industry, the biggest employer in the world. On average, one in six of the world's jobs somehow depend on travel and tourism.

Such figures emphasize the economic importance of tourism. Many developing countries now rate tourism as their major export earner and their main hope for future economic development. In Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe enormous amounts of time, human resources and money are going toward tourism development.

For some countries, sex tourism (sometimes involving pedophilia) is seen as an unfortunate but necessary part of local tourist industries. The link between tourism and prostitution is a mind-set in many places.

Bangkok is generally regarded as the sex-capital of Asia. A report to Unicef by the Anti-Slavery Society (Judith Ennew/1986) estimated that there were one million prostitutes in Thailand. Most of them are young women. Of those under 18 years of age, 35 percent are aged 17, 55 percent are between 15 and 16 and about 10 percent are aged between 13 and 14. There are also considerably younger girls in Bangkok brothels, wrote Majgull Axelsson in Rosario is Dead.

Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Indonesia are starting to encounter the same problems that Thailand, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and the Philippines have had for many years. The children in these countries are sexually exploited both by western pedophiles and local men.

Many children are also exploited for prostitution in India and Nepal. Almost 200,000 girls from Nepal have been taken over the border to India, where they are forced to work in brothels.

Some African countries with attractive beaches, such as Kenya and Mozambique, now have child-sex tourist industries. So do coastal towns in Brazil.

Reasons

Historically, travel has often been associated with prostitution. The earliest tourism destinations were religious shrines or trade centers. And in the ruins of ancient cities like Ephesus, Babylon and Pompeii the prostitute quarters are still clearly visible and surprisingly large. Inveterate travelers in history, particularly seamen and soldiers, have helped create prostitution areas in the cities they visited.

Today tourist numbers are increasing dramatically. Most of the new travelers are not deliberately seeking sex when they travel, but even so the number exploiting commercial sex is considerable, especially in those destinations where sexual services are readily available.

Many psychological, social and cultural reasons have been put forward to explain why this occurs.

* When tourists are away from home, an anonymity releases them from their usual social restraints which determine their behavior at home. A man who would never contemplate visiting a brothel in his home town will often do so in a foreign country.

* In "exotic" tourist destinations, visitors usually cannot understand the language or the cultural nuances of the local society. This leads them to make assumptions which are probably wrong but which enable them to rationalize their changed behavior. It is common for tourists who sexually exploit children to explain their behavior by saying that sex with children "is more acceptable in this culture, and the people here do not have the same sexual hang-ups we have in our country". Equally common among exploiters, is the rational that this is a way of helping poor children get money.

* Tourism does not only change behavior, it can also reinforce prejudice. Visitors with strong views, be they explicit or obscure, on the inferiority of other races usually have their racist attitudes reinforced in foreign countries. Such people have no scruples about exploiting other people because they consider them inferior.

* The experience of economic superiority in a poorer country tempts some visitors to sexually exploit and abuse local people. These nouveau riche sometimes spend their money on sexual activities which they associate with lifestyles of the rich and famous.

* Tourists sometimes flee unhappy sexual relationships at home and are open to new sexual experiences. Aspects of this have been evident among men from western industrialized societies. With the traditional privileges of a patriarchal society slowly being eliminated in many western countries, some men feel inadequate to cope with the change. Marriages and other relationships breakdown, employment opportunities are no longer so readily available and "strong" women are seen as a threat to male domination.

* Finally, one of the most important reasons why tourists are exploiting children for sex is that the children are readily available. The ease with which tourists in some countries can obtain a child as a sexual partner is, in itself, a powerful incentive for some to try the novelty of having sex with children. The role of organized crime in supplying children must be recognized. Because tourists are often willing to pay large sums of money for sex with children, the trade in children has become more lucrative to criminals and therefore more commonplace.

The sex tourism "environment" -- described as sex tourists' motives, economic interests, sex-oriented profiles of tourist destinations, styles of advertising, etc. -- significantly encourages people, who are inclined to exploit children, to do so when traveling.

In most countries, organized criminal groups are the only bodies to organize national sex tourist industries. Locals tend to involve themselves in prostitution, including child prostitution, in opportunistic ways; e.g., by pimping and procuring, taking rents from prostitutes or their clients for using their rooms, for "turning a blind eye", etc..

International promotion and organization of sex tourism takes different forms.

There are men and groups of men who appear to view the sexual exploitation of people in developing countries as a benign "hobby", and they dedicate themselves to providing information to like-minded individuals on a non-profit basis. This can simply involve the exchange of information between men in sex tourist resorts, or in bars and pubs back home. Information is also swapped via the Internet. Inadequate legislation allows Internet locations to encourage sex tourists to target "new" destinations in Asia and Africa, for example.

Although there are very few tour operators that explicitly arrange child sex tours, there are small companies in Europe, Australia, North America and Japan which promote and facilitate sex tourism by identifying resorts where prostitution is widespread; by negotiating deals with local hotels to ensure that their clients will not be charged for bringing "companions" back to their rooms; by arranging 24-hour female "guides" for clients; by providing on-the-spot "holiday representatives" with an intimate knowledge of prostitution in cities and resorts.

Some individuals and companies write and publish travel guides which promote sex tourism, at least by implication. Some guide books cater solely to the sex tourist market, providing a wealth of information for child abusers (specifying bars and brothels where "younger girls" can be found). These guides constantly emphasize the youth of the "lovely and willing ladies" to be found in the locations they recommend. There have also been publications which cater specifically for child abusers.

The tourist industry as a whole lets sex tourists travel freely. The fact remains that the travel arrangements for most sex tourists are made by reputable travel agents and package tour operators. And sex tourists are transported around the world by ordinary airlines.

Sex tourism, by implication, is big business for large corporations and smaller travel companies. The composition of sex tourists, in terms of nationalities, in any given resort mirrors the pattern of foreign investment in that resort.

The marketing material of many reputable companies also helps sustain the flow of sex tourists. The materials often stress the nightlife in resorts where the only nightlife is centered around the sexual exploitation of local people.

Unwilling

The tourism industry claims that it has frequently -- and wrongly -- being blamed for supporting child sex tourism.

"Most organizations from the travel and tourism industry are not willing to get involved in sexual tourism between adults," said representatives of the Tourism and Children in Prostitution panel at the World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children this year in Stockholm.

"It must be said that certain categories of travelers (and child sex offenders) are not travel agents' clients," they said.

Pedophiles generally do not use travel agents because they use their connections with clubs or circles to organize their travel. The travel arrangements for armed forces personnel in foreign countries is organized by their administrations, and civilian pedophiles tend to use more informal travel arrangements.

The Universal Federation of Travel Agents' Association (UFTAA) stressed that child abuse should be considered a crime, and that the tourist industry could and should use its influence to try to help eliminate the problem.

"A good number of travel agents' associations have already committed themselves in the fight against child sex tourism. There is no way tourism, a peace industry protecting the human and natural environment, can be associated to child sex tourism," the federation stated via the panel.

The World Tourism Organization released a statement in 1995 which has been broadly used as a basis for governments' fights against organized sex tourism.

"There would be no child sex tourism if there was no sex tourism," said the World Tourism Organization.

Source: Tourism and Children in Prostitution, submitted by End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (ECPAT) for the first World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, Stockholm, Aug. 27-31, 1996.