Child Sex Tourism - Background

Background

Child sex tourism has been closely linked to poverty. In Latin America and Southeast Asia, for instance, street children often turn to prostitution as a last resort. Additionally, vulnerable children are easy targets for exploitation by traffickers.

Thailand, Cambodia, India, Brazil and Mexico have been identified as leading hotspots of child sexual exploitation.

In Thailand, the exact number of child-prostitutes is not known, but Thailand’s Health System Research Institute reports that children in prostitution make up 40% of prostitutes in Thailand. In Cambodia, it has been estimated that about a third of all prostitutes are under 18. In India, the federal police say that around 1.2 million children are believed to be involved in prostitution. Up until recently Brazil has been considered to have the worst child sex trafficking record after Thailand. As per Chris Rogers report on BBC World "Now Brazil is overtaking Thailand as the world's most popular sex-tourist destination". DLN reports that "Brazil at the moment is on a high trend of child sex tourism and is all geared to take up the first spot beating out Thailand."

Sex tourism targeting children creates huge monetary incentives for traffickers. Human trafficking impacts an estimated 1.2 million child victims. The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) recently stated that 79% of all global trafficking is for sexual exploitation, which is one of the fastest growing criminal activities in the world.

UNICEF notes that sexual activity is often seen as a private matter, making communities reluctant to act and intervene in cases of sexual exploitation. These attitudes make children far more vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Most exploitation of children takes place as a result of their absorption into the adult sex trade where they are exploited by local people and sex tourists. The Internet provides an efficient global networking tool for individuals to share information on destinations and procurement.

In cases involving children, the U.S. has relatively strict domestic laws that hold accountable any American citizen or permanent resident of the U.S. who travels abroad for the purpose of engaging in illicit conduct with a minor. However, child pornography, sex tourism and human trafficking remain fast-growing industries. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. recently introduced H.R. 1623, the international Megan's Law. Similar to the domestic Megan's Law (named after Megan Kanka of New Jersey), which provides for community notification when a sex offender is living in the area, H.R. 1623 would alert officials abroad when U.S. sex offenders intend to travel, and likewise encourage other countries to keep sex offender lists and to notify the U.S. when a known sex offender may be coming to the United States for sex tourism. While there are serious problems with the current domestic sex offenders’ registry, human rights organizations such as ECPAT and UNICEF believe this would be a step in the right direction.

One of the factors pushing Brazil to the top of this list of destination countries is the extensive use of the Sport Fishing industry in the Brazilian Amazon as a front. The 2008 U.S. State Department Report States "At midyear Federal Police in Manaus began investigating allegations that a foreign-owned travel company arranged fishing expeditions to the Amazon region that were in reality sex tours for U.S. and European pedophiles. At year's end the investigation was continuing in coordination with foreign law enforcement officials." Another US State Department report states (page 85) "In a newer trend, some arranged fishing expeditions to the Amazon were organized for the purpose of child sex tourism for European and American exploiters." Recent Reports on Fox Atlanta and ABC World News Tonight have helped shine the light on this. ECPAT-USA has recently posted a Brazilian National News story with English subtitles.