Sex Tourism
Demand creates sex tourism.

from The Demand Factor: Buying Despair
Woodcuts, etchings, and collages by Myrna Balk

The Demand Factor

• Prostituted women
• Empty Playgrounds
• Mail Order Brides
• Sex Tourism
• Moving Around
• Houses/ homelessness
• Pimps
• The Demands of Men

Every year, thousands of American men go on vacation with the specific plan to have sex with as many women and girls as they can. They travel to countries in the Caribbean, Asia, and South America . Sex tourism has become a well-developed component of the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children. There are about 25 companies and 100 web sites which offer sex tours. They are based in cities all across the country.

Background:

• Availability of flights , the opening of countries once closed because of war or politics, and the advent of the internet have provided more opportunities.
• Due to the growing demand internationally, more than an additional million children each year are prostituted.
• Economic pressure in poor countries encourages them to develop tourism as a source of additional income.

Many of the women and children made available to the tourists are beaten, tortured, or, in extreme cases, murdered. Children involved in sex work commonly contract sexually transmitted diseases or die of AIDS-related illnesses. To endure their misery, many of the enslaved kids turn to drugs or alcohol.

There is recent legislation making it a federal crime to travel to another country for the purpose of having sex with a minor.

Sources:

Equalitynow.org