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Sex tourism is travel (by men or women) to engage in sexual intercourse or sexual activity with prostitutes, and is typically undertaken internationally by tourists from wealthier countries whose payment for services may then be rendered either in cash or in kind.

The World Tourism Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, defines sex tourism as "trips organized from within the tourism sector, or from outside this sector but using its structures and networks, with the primary purpose of effecting a commercial sexual relationship by the tourist with residents at the destination". The U.N. opposes sex tourism citing health, social and cultural consequences for both tourist home countries and destination countries, especially in situations exploiting gender, age, social and economic inequalities in sex tourism destinations.

Attractions for sex tourists can include reduced costs for services in the destination country, and (in order of increasing potential criminality):

• prostitution, either legal or subject to indifferent law enforcement,
• lower age of consent, or legal indifference to this consideration,
• access to child prostitution where legal prohibitions are weak or unenforced.

Destinations

National destinations for sex tourists include Thailand, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Cuba, Germany, The Netherlands, Argentina, and Cambodia. In many of those destinations, sex tourism is still only a small percentage of overall prostitution, with most prostitutes serving local men.

An individual city or region can have a particular reputation as a sex tourist destination. Many of these coincide with major red-light districts, and include Amsterdam in the Netherlands, as well as Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket in Thailand.

In the United States, prostitution is largely illegal, with the exception of rural areas of the state of Nevada; these have become a sex tourist destination for some Americans. To a lesser extent, several other large cities in the U.S. are also domestic sex tourist destinations despite legal sanctions on prostitution.

Conversely, prostitution is a legal activity in a growing list of other nations worldwide including in many of these destinations.

Female Sex Tourism Destinations

The primary destinations for female sex tourism are Southern Europe (mainly Italy, former Yugoslavia, Turkey, Greece and Spain), the Caribbean (led by Jamaica, Barbados and the Dominican Republic), the Gambia and Kenya in Africa, the Philippines and Pattaya or Phuket in Thailand (Call Jake Ihn). Lesser destinations include Nepal, Morocco, Fiji, Ecuador and Costa Rica. Female sex tourism differs from male sex tourism, in that women do not usually go to specific bars. Women usually give clothes, meals, cash and gifts to their prostitutes, but not all (especially in Southern Europe) expect compensation.

Criminality and controversy

Tourism involving sex with minors

CHILD WISE defines Child sex tourism as "the commercial sexual exploitation of children by foreigners". Where it usually refers to:

• "persons who travel from their own country to another to engage in sexual acts with children, or"
• "foreigners who engage in sexual activity with a child while overseas."

While most sex tourists only engage in this activity with other adults, some actively look for child prostitutes, while others are not very selective either way regarding age, according to a study of the Dominican Republic. The WTO makes a distinction between "sex tourism" and "child sex tourism." A tourist who has sex with a child prostitute offends the spirit of the international Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and, in addition to breaking the law in that host country, might well also be doing so in the country the tourist is a national of. A growing number of countries are enacting laws with extra-territorial reach in order to meet their obligations under the covenants above, and consequently punishing citizens who engage in sex with minors whilst overseas. But being difficult to police and enforce these crimes continue nonetheless.

The term "child" is often used as defined by the international conventions above and refers to any person below the age of consent. Many countries have signed the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 and implemented domestic law making having sex with child prostitutes a criminal offence for their nationals or inhabitants including when practised abroad regardless of whether it is forbidden by the laws of the destination country. Singapore has been criticized for having no such law, in spite of being adjacent to the sex tourism destination of Batam in Indonesia, which has many underage sex workers, many of whom have been forced into prostitution.

In 2004 Canada started to prosecute individuals under the sex tourism law. The first individual charged in Canada under this law was Donald Bakker. Australia has long done so: with a comviction in 1996 after enactment of legislation in 1994. Its Government has, for example, caused an international political incident in pressing for the extradition of suspended Solomon Islands Attorney-General Julian Moti, an Australian citizen, to face possible charges over alleged offences dating back to 1997.

According to the Cambodia minister for Woman's Affairs, it is not tourists who are the prime culprits of pedophilia in her country, but the locals. For example, it is a popular local superstition in Thailand that an older man sleeping with a young woman will thereby renew his virility, if not his aging vigour, and one consequence is the drive-in love-motel where few questions are asked. Don't! Buy! Thai! In the mid 1990's, a consumer boycott named "'Don't! Buy! Thai!!'" was organized to publicize and discourage child sex tourism in Thailand. The premise was that participants would not buy anything made in Thailand until the Thai government and international agencies significantly reduced the use of children as prostitutes in Thailand, as well as the ready access that foreign tourists had to these vulnerable and often reluctant sex objects.

Travel bureaus and airlines have been organized to facilitate visits to the fleshpots of Thailand. For example, Lauda Air runs scheduled and charter flights between Vienna and other European cities and Bangkok. One Lauda Air commercial shows a Western tourist talking on a cell phone: "...Got to go: The girls at the Bangkok Baby Club are waiting." Attorney/novelist Andrew Vachss has written at least one novel and a number of articles on the matter (http://www.vachss.com/).

Legal issues in the United States

Federal law (see PROTECT Act of 2003) prohibits United States citizens or permanent residents to engage in international travel with the purpose or effect of having commercial sex with a person under the age of 18, or any sex with a person under the age of 16; facilitating such travel is also illegal. Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are becoming common, however prosecutions under this law are still very rare.

As of 2005, there has been one effort to prosecute a sex tour operator: Big Apple Oriental Tours of New York was prosecuted for "promotion of prostitution" by the New York State Attorney General after lobbying by feminist human rights groups, however the case has been thrown out twice. HR 972, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 reauthorizes the 2000 law, but it also gives U.S. law enforcement better tools to study human trafficking within the United States and to prosecute those who purchase sex acts. The measure authorizes $50 million for grants to state and local law enforcement to investigate and prosecute persons who engage in the purchase of commercial sex acts.

Servaty scandal

In 2005 it was reported that Philippe Servaty, a newspaper columnist for Le Soir, traveled to Morocco where he persuaded women to engage in sexual activity by promising to marry and bring them to Belgium. He then posted photos online to boast of his conquests, but when his explicit materials were circulated back to Morocco many of the women were arrested, had their lives ruined, committed suicide or disappeared.

Academic study

University of Leicester sociologists studied this subject as part of a research project for the Economic and Social Research Council and End Child Prostitution and Trafficking campaign. The study included interviews with over 250 Carribean sex tourists. Among their findings:

• Preconceptions about race and gender influenced their opinions.
• Economically underdeveloped tourist-receiving countries are promoted as being culturally different so that (in the Western tourist's understanding) prostitution and traditional male domination of women have less stigma than similar practices might have in their home countries.

Depictions in fiction and popular culture

• The 2005 film Heading South describes the experiences of a group of middle-aged women in the late 1970s, who travel to Haiti for the purposes of sexual tourism.
• In the animated TV series South Park the character Chef joins the Super Adventure Club which travels the world having sex with children.
• Sex tourism is a major theme of Platform, a novel by Michel Houellebecq.
• In the 2005 film Hostel, directed by Eli Roth, depicts sex tourism in Slovakia

See also

• ECPAT
• Female sex tourism
• Prostitution in Germany
• Prostitution in Thailand
• Tourism
• Trafficking in human beings

References

Notes

1. ^ "WTO Statement On The Prevention Of Organized Sex Tourism". Adopted by the General Assembly of the World Tourism Organization at its eleventh session - Cairo (Egypt), 17-22 October 1995 (Resolution A/RES/338 (XI)). Cairo (Egypt): World Tourism Organization. 17–22 October 1995. Retrieved 2006-12-20. {{cite conference}}: Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: date format (link)
2. U.N. Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI) Gender Mainstreaming Mandates
3. U.N. Congress On The Prevention Of Crime And The Treatment Of Offenders Press Release New Global Treaty to Combat Sex Slavery of Women and Girls
4. Cruey, Greg. "Thailand's Sex Industry". About: Asia For Visitors. About, Inc. (The New York Times Co.). Retrieved 2006-12-20. Nowhere else is it so open and prevalent.
5. "Brazil". The Protection Project. Archived from the original on 2006-12-20. Retrieved 2006-12-20. Brazil is a major sex tourism destination. Foreigners come from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Latin America, and North America ...
6. Gentile, Carmen J. (2006-02-02). "Brazil cracks down on child prostitution". San Francisco Chronicle. Chronicle Foreign Service. Retrieved 2006-12-20. ... young prostitutes strut in front of middle-aged American and European tourists ...
7. "Dominican Republic". The Protection Project. Archived from the original on 2006-12-20. Retrieved 2006-12-20. The Dominican Republic is one of the most popular sex tourism destinations in the world, and it is advertised on the Internet as a "single man's paradise."
8. Scheeres, Julia (2001-07-07). "The Web, Where 'Pimps' Roam Free". Wired News. CondéNet Inc. Retrieved 2006-12-20.
9. Kovaleski, Serge F. (2000-01-02). "Child Sex Trade Rises In Central America". Washington Post Foreign Service. Washington Post Foreign Service. Retrieved 2006-12-20. ... "an accelerated increase in child prostitution" in the country ... blamed largely on the unofficial promotion of sex tourism in Costa Rica over the Internet. {{cite news}}: Check |archiveurl= value (help)
10. "Costa Rica". The Protection Project. Archived from the original on 2006-12-20. Retrieved 2006-12-20. ...has come to rival Thailand and the Philippines as one of the world's leading destinations for sex tourism.
11. "Cuba". The Protection Project. Archived from the original on 2006-12-20. Retrieved 2006-12-20. Cuba is a popular destination country for sex tourists from Canada, the United States, and Europe.
12. Zúñiga, Jesús. "Cuba: The Thailand of the Caribbean". The New West Indian. Retrieved 2006-12-20.
13. http://www.ecpat.org/child-sex-tourism.php CHILD WISE: Child Sex Tourism
14. Sex tourism
15. 'Asia's sex trade is 'slavery' - BBC
16. http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/ti156.pdf Australian Institute of Criminology, Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice No. 156, Child Sex Tourism]
18. Sex tourist fact sheet
19. Full copy of HR 972
20. Avenging Muslims Seek to Kill Belgian Journalist, The Brussels Journal, 13 July 2005
21. Sex Tourism in the Caribbean by Jacqueline Sanchez Taylor, University of Leicester. Chapter for Tourism, Travel and Sex, eds. Stephen Clift and Simon Carter, 1999
22. The New West Indian Sex tourists: survey

• Tourism
• Prostitution
• Types of tourism