2. What is Child Sex Tourism?
The United Nations (UN) defines child
sex tourism (CST) as organized tourism
(the nature of which encompasses many
activities) that facilitates the commercial
sexual exploitation of anyone under 18
years of age. (Patterson, 2007)
3. Child Sex Tourism
Susan Song is a Senior Program Assistant with Youth
Advocate Program International in Washington, D.C.
She describes child sex tourism (CST) as “a type of
commercial sexual exploitation of children
(CSEC), along with child prostitution, pornography, and
sex trafficking. CSEC, CST in particular, is a lucrative
and ubiquitous practice affecting an estimated 2 million
children worldwide, every year.” (Song, 2003)
Susan Song
The World Tourism Organization describes CST 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", bringing about "the grave health as well as
social and cultural consequences of this
activity, especially when it exploits gender, age, social
(Code of Conduct: Overview)
and economic inequality at the destination visited.”
4. Convention on the Rights of the
Child
“The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is an
internationally recognized agreement between nations which
establishes a comprehensive set of goals for individual nations to
achieve on behalf of their children” (Convention on the Rights of the
“The child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs
Child, 2012)
special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal
protection, before as well as after birth.”
“Article 34 : States Parties undertake to protect the child from all
forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. For these
purposes, States Parties shall in particular take all appropriate
national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent
(a) The inducement or coercion of a child to engage in any
unlawful sexual activity;
(b) The exploitative use of children in prostitution or other
unlawful sexual practices;
(c) The exploitative use of children in pornographic
performances and materials.
(Convention on the Rights of the Child, 2007)
5. Who are the Child Prostitutes?
Sexual
exploitation Children that They have venereal
of children is come from poor diseases and are
often directly families very likely to soon
related to get AIDS
Children that are
abuse in the They would like to
illiterate
families, pov leave
erty and Serve between
prostitution, but do
economic two and seven
not know how
exploitation. clients per day
(Facts About Child Prostitution, 2012)
6. Who are Child Sex Tourists?
The majority of sex tourists are In data gathered from 1991 to
adult males from more 1996, of 240 tourists who sexually
industrialized countries who travel abused and exploited children in
to lesser developed countries Asia in the prior seven years and
where laws are weakly enforced faced
and sex is cheap and readily arrest, imprisonment, deportation-
available. (Song, 2003) , or fled the country, around one-
Americans comprise an estimated fourth were American child sex
25% of all sex tourists. Yet 38% of tourists. (Flowers, 2001)
sex tourists in Cambodia and 80% Most foreign tourists who sexually
of sex tourists in Costa Rica are exploit children tend to travel from
American. (Song, 2003) wealthy, economically developed
Pedophiles, which make up a large Western nations to impoverished
group of the sex tourists that countries such as those in
exploit children, mainly under Southeast Asia with well
12, keep track of news articles that established and commercialized
mention the locations of kids and sex tour-ism industries.
schools in particularly poor areas. (Flowers, 2001)
7. Who are Child Sex Tourists
continued
(Patterson, 200
7)
8. Child Sex Tourism Statistics
In Cambodia, the Human Rights In the 1995 Human Rights Watch
Vigilance reported that more than Report, one in five brothel
3 in 10 sex workers in the prostitutes in Bombay was
country were between 13 and 17 reported to be a female under
years of age. the age of 18.
In China, the Peking People's Vietnam, as many as one in five
Daily reported that in Sichuan prostitutes are under the age of
alone over 10,000 children and 18. The rise in juvenile
women are sold into sexual prostitution is attributed to a
slavery annually. growing sex tourism industry in
In Sri Lanka, an estimated the country.
100,000 minors age 6 to 14 are In Columbia, the Bogota
being prostituted in child Chamber of Commerce recently
brothels, with 5,000 other re- ported that child prostitution
children selling sexual favors in had increased five times in the
child sex tourism areas of the preceding seven years.
country.
(Flowers, 2001)
9. Fighting Back Against Child Sex
Tourism
There have been 55 child sex tourism cases and 36
convictions brought under the Protect Act, according
to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' 2006
trafficking report.
According to the U.S. government, 32 countries have
laws that allow them to join the global movement to
prosecute their citizens who engage in child sex
tourism abroad.
NGOs have been encouraging travel agencies like
hotels, airlines and tour operators to sign a "code of
conduct" to commit to training staff and advertising
the illegality of sex tourism. Since 2004, more than
600 companies around the world have joined the
efforts. (Bacon, 2007)
13. Works Cited
Bacon, B. (2007, July 17). Stolen Innocence: Inside the Shady World of Child Sex Tourism. Retrieved June 26, 2012, from ABC News:
http://abcnews.go.com/thelaw/Story?id=3385318&page=1
Child and Tourism. (2012). Retrieved June 26, 2012, from Equations - Equitable Tourism Options:
http://www.equitabletourism.org/stage/tourism_details.php?AID=60
Code of Conduct: Overview. (n.d.). Retrieved June 26, 2012, from Code of Conduct - We Protect Children from Sex Tourism :
http://www.thecode.org/index.php?page=2_3_2
Convention on the Rights of the Child. (2007). Retrieved June 26, 2012, from Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm#art34
Convention on the Rights of the Child. (2012). Retrieved June 26, 2012, from Amnesty International USA:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/children-s-rights/convention-on-the-rights-of-the-child-0
Facts About Child Prostitution. (2012). Retrieved June 26, 2012, from Black Box - Images of Asia:
http://blackboxes.odeum.com/en/asia_in_school/labour/facts_about_child_prostitution.htm
Flowers, R. B. (2001). The Sex Trade Industry's Worldwide Exploitation of Children. Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science , 575, 147-157.
Patterson, T. (2007). Child Sex Tourism: A Dark Journey. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin , 76 (1), 16-21.
Song, S. (2003, September). Global Child Sex Tourism: Children as Tourist Attractions. Retrieved June 26, 2012, from Youth
Advocate Program International: http://www.yapi.org/rpchildsextourism.pdf
