The Context of Sexual Exploitation of Children by Tourists and Travelers: A Cross-National Comparison of Destination Countries and Non-Destination Countries

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10575677221081875
• Author: Anneke Koning,Johan van Wilsem
• Date: 01 December 2023
• Subject Matter: Original Articles

The Context of Sexual

Exploitation of Children by

Tourists and Travelers: A Cross-

National Comparison of

Destination Countries and Non-

Destination Countries

Anneke Koning

1

and Johan van Wilsem

2

Abstract

Certain countries are well known for being destination countries for sexual exploitati on of children

in the context of travel and tourism (SECTT). Various factors are assumed to be at play to increase

the vulnerability of countries, and the children that live within them, to being destinations for

SECTT. The current study uses a cross-national, quantitative approach to examine these assump-

tions, by investigating macro-level factors relating to tourism, children’s living conditions, gover-

nance, and economic development that may account for the variation in SECTT occurrence. Our

f‌indings indicate that destination countries are, on average, characterized by lower economic wealth

and are located closer to the equator. Unlike assumed in previous literature, governance and tour-

ism are not signif‌icantly related to destination countries for SECTT. The results for children’s living

conditions are unexpected: while bivariate analyses show that destination cou ntries have poorer

children’s living conditions, a positive relation emerges in multivariate models when controlled

for economic development. More specif‌ically, we f‌ind that within the group of countries with

poor economic conditions, SECTT is more likely to occur in countries with better protection of

children’s rights to life and education. We explore potential explanations for this f‌inding.

Keywords

cross-national comparison, child sex tourism, child sexual exploitation, economic development

Introduction and Overview

Sexual exploitation of children in the context of travel and tourism (SECTT), also known as “child

sex tourism,”

1

is a global problem that has received growing policy attention over the years. The

1

Department of Criminology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

2

Netherlands Court of Audit, The Hague, The Netherlands

Corresponding Author:

Anneke Koning, Department of Criminology, Leiden University, Steenschuur 25, 2321 ES Leiden, The Netherlands.

Email: a.koning@law.leidenuniv.nl

Original Article

International Criminal Justice Review

2023, Vol. 33(4) 349-366

© 2022 Georgia State University

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/10575677221081875

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typical image is that of an offender traveling from a wealthy country of origin to a poorer country

where the child is sexually abused (the so-called “destination country”). Although the perception

of the phenomenon has been broadened in recent years—for example, nongovernmental organiza-

tions (NGOs) have emphasized that there is no “typical offender,”and that offenders can come

from western countries as well as countries within the region (Hawke & Raphael, 2016)—certain

countries appear to be particularly well known for being SECTT destinations. This dual message

of, on the one hand, a call for a broader perspective about destination countries, and on the other

the acknowledgement that there are particular hot spots in the world, is illustrated, for example,

by the following statement from the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution,

and child pornography:

Although [SECTT] tends to occur more commonly in developing countries, this phenomenon can occur

anywhere in the world and no country or tourism destination is exempt. Between the supply generated by

low income countries and the demand from industrialized countries, the choice of the destination depends

on languages and connections, but also preferences and tastes. While Western Europeans would tend to

travel to Eastern Europe to exploit children, 18 out of 50 (36 per cent) American [SECTT] cases between

2003 and 2006 involved crimes committed in Mexico. (M’jid, 2012, p. 6)

But why do certain countries in the world become destinations for SECTT, and others do not? In

academic and grey literature, many factors have been hypothesized to contribute to the vulnerability

of specif‌ic countries, and children within these countries, to be(com)ing destinations for SECTT. For

instance, in their theoretical model of the SECTT “ecosystem,”George and Panko (2011, p. 137)

construe a multitude of drivers in destination countries, including “underdevelopment, poverty, mar-

ginalization, avarice, lack of empowerment, corruption, lackluster law enactment and enforcement,

frail morality, and widespread insensitivity to the rights of children.”

Yet hardly any of the hypothesized risk factors that could allow SECTT to thrive in a specif‌ic

country are substantiated by cross-national quantitative research. The literature in this f‌ield has

been described as “based on assumptions rather than research”(Spurrier & Alpaslan, 2017,

p. 389), and there is a dearth of studies identifying risk factors which could advance prevention

efforts (Miller-Perrin & Wurtele, 2017). While some research has examined individual or micro-level

risk factors, for instance on child victimization (Spurrier & Alpaslan, 2017) or offending (Koops

et al., 2017), the macro-level risk factors have hardly been explored.

This study aims to contribute to this research gap by looking for variation in societal circum-

stances across countries that may account for the variation in the occurrence of SECTT. What dif-

ferences can be found between those countries that are labeled “destinations,”and those that are

not? Through the use of open source data from 190 countries about SECTT and factors that have

been reported to contribute to SECTT, we can gauge the validity of some common assumptions

about country-level risk factors for SECTT. To our knowledge, this is the f‌irst study to do so.

In the next section, we describe key risk factors from academic and grey literature that have been

assumed to contribute to the occurrence of SECTT, focusing on tourism, children’s living conditions,

governance, and economic factors. In the section “Data and Methods,”we describe our data and strat-

egy of analysis. In the section “Results,”we present the main results. Sections “Discussion”and

“Implications and Limitations”conclude and discuss implications and limitations.

Theoretical Background

This study focuses on four key factors that are hypothesized to explain why certain countries are

destination countries for SECTT: (1) presence of tourism in the country, (2) living conditions of chil-

dren and protection of their fundamental rights, (3) quality of government, and (4) economic factors.

350 International Criminal Justice Review 33(4)