Sexual Tourism

Foreign sex tourists, who for years have preyed on youngsters all over the world, are believed to be active everywhere in the world with the burgeoning success of child pornography on the Internet because of lax laws, cheap and abundant child prostitutes and a reportedly lower incidence of AIDS.

Statistically it's an underestimation to say that there are millions of children being abused in the illegal sex business of minors.Sex tourists are generally men from Europe, North America, Japan, England, Latin America, Australia, and all over the world.

But most offenders escape prosecution. Bail is easy to obtain in many cases, and bribe-taking among police officers is common. The problem was first highlighted in 1990 when an Anglo-Indian who ran an orphanage in Goa was arrested for allegedly supplying children to British, French, German, Swiss and Scandinavian tourists. He was freed on bail and the case has still not gone to court.

Since then, tougher laws have been passed in countries renowned for their sex bazaars, such as Thailand, the Philippines, Costa Rica, India, wherever tourism is exotic and away from the federal prosecution of major industrial countries.

This has all contributed to an expansion of the child-sex industry worldwide. Since the US State department has reported about the problems of trafficking of children and the lucrative and difficult to prosecute nature of the crime, the industry has continued to thrive. It is our goal to support the creation of stricter laws in order to halt this crime before it reaches epidemic proportions.

Poverty and illiteracy fuel the problem. Many children are lured away from their villages by vice rings, often with the involvement of poor parents. They end up in the beach resorts, where drugs such as hashish and heroin are also available cheaply - providing an added attraction to foreigners.

Most child prostitutes serve local men, says the Coalition on Child Prostitution and Tourism. The Coalition, which is the British branch of the international organization ECPAT (End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism), is urging the London government to follow the lead of 12 other countries in legislating to enable the prosecution of nationals at home for sexual offences committed against children overseas. Anne Badger, the Coalition's campaign coordinator, says the problem often arises in poor countries seeking to take advantage of a hot climate to develop tourism.