Children and sex tourism

Asian countries, including Thailand, India, and the Phillipines, (2-14% of the gross domestic product derives from sex tourism) is the first destination for children sex tourists. However, nowadays, this trade is travelling to Mexico and Central America.

Studies point out that child prostitutes receive between two and thirty clients per week, between 100 to 1500 clients per year (many children below the age of 10).

Factors supporting Children prostitution

- The most significant reason that brings children into prostitution is poverty, often correlates with limited employment opportunities, illiteracy, and bleak financial circumstances.

Then, children in these poor families are easy targets for pimps who ensure them jobs in a city and then push the children into prostitution. Moreover some poor families themselves prostitute their children in order to get money.

- Internet has also fostered the children sex tourism: websites show potential child with pornographic accounts.

- Finally, actions by governments may further child sex tourism. Some governments have increasingly oriented tourism in their search for sources of income ( Thailand, India…). These governments in many cases turn a blind eye to the sex tourism industry to promote tourism in their country.