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Sex Tourism In Third World Countries

Sex Tourism In Third World Countries

Sexual Abuse

Sex tourism means that an individual travels to a country to engage in a sexual act that they pay for. Usually this sex involves children.  Many of the participants are victims of sex trafficking or sexual slavery.  Surprisingly, this type of tourism is fairly common, especially in third world countries. Even though it’s illegal in many places it doesn’t stop many individuals from accepting payment for sex. Here are a couple of reasons why someone might risk breaking the law in order to receive money for performing sexual acts on a tourist.

CNN reported that 4000+ sex offenders get US passports each year. It sound absurd but this is just another example of a system that doesn’t quite work. Unless it can be proved that the person is engaging in sex tourism, there is nothing to prevent them from getting a passport. It’s sort of like finding out that past sex offenders can work at children’s camps in Connecticut as long as they aren’t the director or assistant director. There needs to be more open communication between agencies to plug the gaps in how our society deals with sex offenders.

Extreme Poverty and Sex Tourism

Those that live in third world countries often experience extreme poverty. They don’t have a proper education and they have a difficult time gaining employment. Because of this, they will often take any job that they can get even if it means becoming involved in sex tourism. Their extreme poverty will influence them to do almost anything to earn money so that they can feed their family, even if it involves sexual acts. Those who participate in sex tourism know how dire their situation is and are willing to do just about anything in order to make money.

Lack Of Proper Education About The Consequences

Sex tourism is a dangerous business. Those who participate in it often don’t realize the legal ramifications that could come about if they get caught. Even though they may understand that it’s frowned upon, they don’t fully grasp that they could face a fine or even go to jail if they get caught. Also, they don’t realize that there could be health consequences as well. Unfortunately, in many third world countries there isn’t a lot of information about sexually transmitted diseases. For an individual that participates in sex tourism, they don’t always fully understand that they are at risk of getting an STD.

Not Enough Enforcement

It’s no surprise that in third world countries there tends to be a lot of crime. Because of this, something like stopping sex tourism is simply not a priority. If there are laws against it, they often aren’t enforcement. Law enforcement officials tend to have more pressing issues to deal with. As long as no other more serious crimes are committed, like rape or battery, sex tourism tends to be overlooked. Something like sex stopping sex tourism just isn’t seen as a priority.

Victims Don’t Speak Out

It’s not uncommon for those who are receiving money for sex tourism to feel forced to do so. They don’t know that they can speak out against it. Unfortunately, the money that they bring it from it greatly helps to benefit their families. Without it, these individuals wouldn’t be able to feed their children, brothers or sisters or parents. Even if they wanted to speak out, they have no idea where to turn to in order to get help.

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Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.

Sexual Abuse by the Numbers

Sexual Abuse by the Numbers

Sexual Abuse

It always amazes me that  problems much less common than sexual abuse like autism and cancer tend to get much more attention.  I don’t know if they are any less scary, but anything sex related is difficult to talk about.  And for many people, it’s just something that is better off not spoken of.  Well, while people aren’t talking about it, the cost to society continues to go up.  

Even if you somehow thought sexual abuse was OK  wouldn’t it start to bother you as a tax payer that it is costing our society (just in the U.S) over $100 Billion dollars a year in medical, legal and other costs.  The average rape cost society over $150,000.  The figures on child sexual abuse tend to not be included because they are difficult to measure.  It’s estimated that only about 15% of sexual abuse is reported even though it is happening to roughly 25% of children by the time they are 18.  For more costs check out http://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/CostsConsequencesSV.pdf 

Slavery today?

And for those of you who thought Lincoln ended slavery, think again.  There are more people in slavery today than there were in 1865.  Current estimates on just sex slavery currently put the number at around 27,000,000 people world wide.  Looking at that another way, that’s every man, woman and child north east of Washington DC.  Or sliced a different way – the entire population of Texas.  It’s a problem almost too big to comprehend – and as a result people don’t want to talk about it.  Beginning the discussion is the first step to making these problems go away.  It’s also important to reframe how we look at the issue of sex slavery.

The word prostitution has a different connotation than slavery.  It’s “the worlds oldest profession”, and that label seems to imply a choice of vocation.  These women decided to make their money by being paid for sex – or at least that’s how it is portrayed by society.  The reality is that most were bought or kidnapped and imprisoned and held through drugs or economically where they could never pay off what they owed to whoever bought them.  It’s a difficult cycle to break, and the organizations that are doing it are going door to door and freeing one child at a time.   If you would like to help, check out http://www.theexodusroad.com/

Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.