Sex Tourism

Sex tourism refers to sexual service industries catering to tourists. The development of the sex tourism industry is largely rooted in providing sexual services to military personnel during war. The availability of women for sexual use by American GIs during the Vietnam War is one of the most prominent examples. Since the wars in the mid to late 20th century, sex tourism has rapidly expanded. Today, Southeast Asian countries including Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, India, and Sri Lanka are the most popular destinations for tourists traveling to foreign countries [Page 758]to procure sexual encounters. However, because of more recent restrictions imposed on the sex tourism industry in these popular destination countries, an increasing number of sex tourists have looked to Latin American and South American countries such as Brazil, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, Trinidad, and Tobago.

Additionally, some West African destinations, such as Gambia, have experienced increased demand for the sex tourism industry. Based on a recent estimate by the International Labor Organization, 1.39 million people are involved in forced commercial sexual exploitation, with children comprising 40 percent to 50 percent of that figure. Although estimates do not distinguish the number of people exploited by the sex tourism industry specifically, the sex tourism industry has a significant contribution to number of victims of commercial sexual exploitation, both by itself and through its influence on other forms of sexual exploitation. For instance, the widespread expansion of sex tourism has significantly contributed to the trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children worldwide. Because of sexually transmitted diseases, poor health, and aging, the demand for desirable individuals to provide sexual services to tourists is high, and thus recruiting individuals from other areas is relied on to keep up with the demand on the sex tourism industry.

Sex tourists are the patrons of the sex tourism industry. Sex tourists travel to foreign countries for the purposes of engaging in sexual encounters. Predominantly from developed, Westernized nations, such as Western Europe, North America, and Australia, sex tourist are typically males, but they come from a variety of backgrounds and income brackets. Often sex tourists are looking to escape the illegality of prostitution and sex with children in their own countries. Foreign women and children are also eroticized as exotic, subservient, and eager to please based on ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality.

The individuals that provide sexual services to travelers are most commonly male and female children, or young adult females. Conditions of extreme poverty, minimal education, and absence of social and economic opportunities make the sale sexual services one of few options for survival. In so many of these countries, a culture of materialism equates money with both status and power, and thus the need for financial resources for impoverished individuals is critical to both their physical and social livelihoods. Additionally, the cultural devaluation of women, and in some cases children, even further restricts the already limited opportunity structure for those who end up working in the sex tourism industry. Family values centered on reciprocity and filial obligations in many of these countries leave individuals faced with few external opportunities and resources, but many internal responsibilities. Individuals embedded in a framework of extreme poverty, cultural devaluation of vulnerable populations, a lack of social and economic opportunities, and political instability are easily exploited to feed the growing sex tourism industry without having access or claim to any of the profits generated through their sexual labor.

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