Child Sex Tourism

I just attended a conference about "Helping the Poor". Speaker Jackie Pullinger mentioned that more than a million children are drawn into prostitution each year. One million is alot.

"On this trip, I've had sex with a 14 year-old girl in Mexico and a 15 year-old in Colombia. I'm helping them financially. If they don't have sex with me, they may not have enough food. If someone has a problem with me doing this, let UNICEF feed them."
-Retired U.S. Schoolteacher

"Maria is . . . prostituted by her aunt. Maria is obliged to sell her body exclusively to foreign tourists in Costa Rica, she only works mornings as she has to attend school in the afternoon. Maria is in fifth grade." (Fifth graders are about 10-12yrs old)

Child sex tourists are individuals that travel to foreign countries to engage in sexual activity with children. The non-profit organization End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, and the Trafficking of Children (ECPAT) estimates that more than one million children worldwide are drawn into the sex trade each year.

Poverty is the main reason that pushes children into prostitution. Many nations with thriving sex tourism industries are nations that suffer from widespread poverty resulting from turbulent politics and unstable economies. Young children are lured away from broken homes by "recruiters" who promise them jobs in a city and then force the children into prostitution. Some poor families themselves prostitute their children or sell their children into the sex trade to obtain desperately needed money.

The Internet has also facilitated the recent rise in child sex tourism by providing a convenient marketing channel. Websites detail sexual exploits with children and supply information on prices in various destinations etc.The easy availability of this information on the Internet generates interest in child sex tourism and facilitates child sex abusers in making their travel plans.

Information taken from the U.S. Department of State
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/ceos/sextour.html
http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/fs/2005/51351.htm

There's a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable. The victims of sex trade see little of life before they see the very worst of life -- an underground of brutality and lonely fear. —President George W. Bush before the UN General Assembly, September 2003

Who will help these children?