Combating child sex tourism in Southeast Asia.

AuthorCotter, Kelly M.

"[I]f you choose to abuse children at home or abroad you will go to jail. The miles you travel from your home to commit these crimes will not insulate you from justice."--Sharon Cohn Wu, attorney at International Justice Mission, Washington, D.C. (3)

  1. INTRODUCTION

    Sexploitation, flesh peddling of minors, children for sale, child sex tourism amongst the fancy phrases for the international market for child sexual abuse, it boils down to a blatant "rape for profit" industry. According to the U.S. State Department, each year more than two million children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade. (4) Before 2006, the top criminal industries in the world were drugs, guns, and sex, ranked in descending order. (5) Recently, illegal commercial sex has surpassed guns and become the second largest black-market in the world--drugs, SEX, guns--and the flourishing industry "shows little sign of abating." (6)

    1. Background

      Many men purposefully go abroad to purchase sex acts believing they will be able to remain anonymous. (7) A Norwegian study of men's participation in buying sex acts found that "80 percent of those who bought sex acts did so abroad." (8) Certain cities around the world have become notorious destinations for purchasing sex with children. (9) Indeed, traveling for the purpose of purchasing sex acts is known as sex tourism. (10) The U.N. defines child sex tourism as "tourism organized with the primary purpose of facilitating the effecting of a commercial-sexual relationship with a child." (11)

      Americans account for the largest group of foreign "tourists" in Southeast Asia. (12), Around one-fourth of the 240 tourists who sexually abused and exploited children in Asia between 1991 and 1996 and as a result faced arrest, imprisonment, deportation, or fled the country, were American child sex tourists. (13) The economic relationship between Western men seeking children and the Asian citizens who often run the supply remains a stronghold in this impervious illegal market.

      As the commercial sex industry becomes more widespread and profitable, it enlarges the danger for women and children. One of the largest effects of this shift is the plight of children kidnapped into the industry. (14) For instance, when the tsunami hit South East Asia in 2005, sex traders preyed on the orphaned children and kidnapped them. (15) Although the Indonesian government issued a proclamation that no Indonesian child was allowed to leave the country at that time, experts believed it did not prohibit the traffickers, who often hold onto the "assets" for the long haul. (16)

      Few campaigns aim at reducing the demand for victims, as many trafficking groups focus on prevention campaigns and warning potential victims. Donna Hughes, a prominent scholar on child-trafficking, purports that abolishing sexual exploitation will require stronger efforts to combat the demand in receiving countries. (17) She thinks that a focus on the demand side means making men personally accountable for their behavior that contributes to the sex trade. Is This article focuses on the demand side of sex tourism and what national and international steps of enforcement are taking place. Specifically, this paper reviews the recent publicized stories of three "johns"--men who traveled abroad for sexual tourism--in order to show the layout, progress, and "play-by-play" of U.S. and international laws toward perpetrators who seek criminal pedophilia in Southeast Asia.

    2. Factors That Make Southeast Asia a Predominant Location For Sex Tourism: The Supply and Demand of Young Girls

      According to the U.S. State Department, "Cambodia is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation." (19) Unfortunately, Cambodia is not an exception in Southeast Asia. (20) Sex trafficking also occurs rampantly in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Burma. (21) Each of these countries has young children stolen across its borders for the sex industry and each hosts brothels of young imprisoned girls. (22)

      In his book Not For Sale, David Batstone outlines that sex slavery thrives in Southeast Asia because of four powerful factors: (1) devastating poverty; (2) armed conflicts; (3) rapid industrialization; and (4) an exploding population growth. (23) Political scientists and economists surmise that Southeast Asia's current period of radical transition may be a dominant factor in sex trading's growth, because during seismic societal changes, the powerless suffer the most. (24)

      The ground-breaking work Disposable People expounds on the surge of "new slavery" around the world. (25) Whereas in "old slavery" the owners regarded the victims as valuable and expensive possessions of a family, in the "new slavery" the victims cost little and are easily replaceable. (26) Worldwide population growth has produced a glut of impoverished people, which provides a steady supply of people whom traffickers can manipulate and take advantage of. (27)

      Bales also writes about how rapid economic change produces an increase in "modern slavery." (28) As modernization in developing countries contributes to the immense wealth of the elite, it also comes with rapid social and economic change that greatly effects the impoverishment of the poor majority. People may push aside traditional ways of life for the cash crop and a quick profit. (29) Modernization and globalization may shatter traditional families and their small-scale subsistence farming. The loss of common land, the shift from subsistence farming to cash-crop demands, and new government policies end up bankrupting millions of peasants and drive them from their land and sometimes into slavery. (30)

      Modernization also brings a new pressure for consumer goods. (31) The rationale behind a family selling their daughter into the sex trade has shown to be changing. (32) In Thailand, it had not been unheard of for parents to sell their daughters into prostitution in response to a serious family financial crisis. A family might sell a daughter in order to redeem debt on their rice fields and prevent destitution. For the most part, daughters were worth about as much at home as workers than if they were sold. (33) Bales reports how modernization has made selling a daughter into prostitution not just a response of desperation, but a means to a coveted product. (34) The sale of a daughter might buy a new television set. (35) A survey in the northern provinces of Thailand revealed that two-thirds of families who sold their daughters "preferred to buy color televisions and video equipment," though they could afford to keep their daughters in the alternate. (36)

      Police complicity ranks as another prominent roadblock to combating child sex tourism in Southeast Asia. (37) The officers who should stand as sentries to protect young girls from these crimes often look the other way. (38) The chimera of poorly paid officials amidst opulent sex tourism operations remains an indefatigable impediment to the implementation of Southeast Asian anti-trafficking laws. (39) While many Southeast Asian countries have shown improvement through increased arrests and prosecutions, the U.S. State Department's "Report on Human Rights Practices 2006" notes that in Cambodia corruption remains a significant problem. (40) Laws are only as effective as the police and judges who enforce them. The Report reviews that corruption and a weak judicial system hampered Cambodia's anti-trafficking efforts stating: "It was widely believed that some law enforcement and other governmental officials received bribes that facilitated the sex trade." (41)

    3. Economics of Child Sex Tourism

      According to INTERPOL, a woman can bring in from $75,000 to $250,000 per year for her sexual exploitation. (42) Children often bring in more money because their virginity may be sold at a high rate. (43) For example, a mama-san in Cambodia can sell a virgin for $600. (44) Video evidence of children in Cambodia reveals that one girl may sell for $30, two girls for $60. (45)

      Kevin Bales also exhibits an extensive chart about the costs of brothels in Thailand in Disposable People. (46) He reviews that it costs about $2.00 to $3.20 a day per prostitute for food and $8-$16 a day in bribes to the police. (47) However, the income monumentally exceeds the expenses. Each girl may have between ten and eighteen clients for $50-$90 each, making a single day's return $1,000 to $1,800, just on sex, as well as the other ways the brothel had incur fees, such as through drink sales, condom sales, and rent the girl must pay. (48) In total, the expenses for running a brothel in Thailand average about 257,000 baht (about $10,280) a month, while the total income raked in at about 2,289,000 baht, which is a monthly profit of $81,280--a huge return. (49)

      The sex industries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines account for two to 14 percent of these countries' gross domestic product. (50) In Thailand, the yearly estimated income from prostitution between 1993 and 1995 was $22.5 billion to $27 billion. (51) In Jakarta, the sex industry makes $91 million per year and in Indonesia as a whole, the sex industry is estimated to bring in $1.2 billion to $3.3 billion per year. (52) Prostitution in the Philippines is now the fourth largest source of gross national product for the country. (53) The production of child pornography in the Philippines is a $1 billion industry. Understanding the financial aspects of sex trafficking is a vital part in the strategies to disrupt the market. In order for exploiters to lose interest in trafficking, the economic incentive must decrease. (54)

  2. CASE STUDIES: THREE WESTERN "TOURISTS" 1N SOUTHEAST ASIA AND THE EFFECT OF THE LAW ABROAD

    This section outlines the activities of a few of these sex tourists. By following specific cases of tourists, this paper intends to show how U.S. laws, international laws, and trans-national legal...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT