Sex Tourism: Moral Dilemma

Sex Tourism: Moral Dilemma

Author: Janina Grabelnikova

University: University of Wolverhampton

Abstract:

The aim and purpose of the paper is to analyse and define sex tourism industry as a whole, and to identify the key advantages and disadvantages of the industry that affect the political, economic and social aspects of the countries or destinations involved. The main question and argument of the paper is the moral dilemma that arises when governments have to fight the consequences that sex tourism industry brings to specific countries, while being one of the main income sources and an important factor which contributes to the economic situation within the country.

Keywords:

Prostitution, HIV, Human Trafficking

Discussion Paper:

Sex tourism can be traced back to many hundreds of years ago, when travellers and merchandisers have travelled between the ancient empires to sell goods. The first brothels were operating and established already back then, when men had to pay, usually with goods, for the sexual pleasures with the women. However, sex tourism was defined only in 20th century. Sex tourism involves an act of tourists travelling to different countries in order to fulfil a sexual act with the individuals or residents of the destination with the primary purpose of getting pleasure and paying for it (Opperman, 1998). The major boom and development of the industry is considered to be late 60s and 70s of the last century when world has finally recovered after the devastations of the wars, and when technological developments have improved the ways and distances of travel, for example, now long distance flights were available, and the infrastructures were rebuild and improved. The technological improvements in the world have caused major interest of people to see the world and explore unknown for various reason. This could be learning, visiting, sightseeing, treatment purposes, and much more (Lofgren, 1999). However, there were some negative and wrong reasons to do so as well. As the world became much reachable, there was an instant interest in countries of the exotic nature, usually the ones with poor economies and cheap standards of living (Harrison, 2001). The people of the 1st world countries saw an amazing opportunity for a holiday where they could spend less while vacating and gaining more of an experience than anywhere else in the world. Such interest became a crucial and important economic development for the countries vacating the people, because now there was an enormous opportunity to get recognition and profit from the tourism (Page, 2001). By becoming a cheap and exotic tourism destination, country or area involved, has turn it’s people into the victims of a terrible criminal world which continues to grow every day – sex tourism. People whose lives and living standards have been in terrible condition, now have seen an opportunity of gaining easy money, where they didn’t have to work long hours for little pay. Now many women and men have seen an opportunity of “selling” their bodies to foreign “rich” people in order to survive (Clift & Carter, 2000). Nevertheless, women and men were not the only people involved, with the lack of education, stability and support of authorities and families, many kids were forced or tricked into prostitution and street gangs (Bishop, 1998). Where there are gangs, prostitution and criminal activity there are always drugs (Pisticelli, 2007), which are given to people in order to numb the feelings or become completely disoriented and become less vulnerable and accessible for others to use (Monzini, 2005). The criminal activity surrounded by drugs and prostitution is an enormous source of income for the people responsible, the number of people dying in Latin America, Asia or Eastern Europe continues to grow as the gangs continue to become more powerful and have a way of dealing with authorities. The least important fact is the spread of the HIV virus and, many other STDs that people continue to give one another by being uneducated, reckless, drunk or selfish (Lomborg, 2012). The last and most terrible activity surrounding sex tourism is human trafficking, where many women and men are being abducted for the purposes of being sold as sexual slaves to other countries (Monzini, 2005). The most terrifying things is that this criminal world continues to expand because there are people who busy such services, and these are the people who come from educated and stable world, these are the people who contribute to one of the biggest crimes committed towards a human being. However, governments are to blame as well, as they continue to shut their eyes upon the evil surrounding their nations and people as they are getting paid, and as it turns out to be in a poor world, if you are getting paid it becomes easier to commit the crime.

References:

Brown, L. (2001), Sex slaves: the trafficking of women in Asia,Virago, London.

Harrison, (2001) Tourism and the Less Developed World: Issues and Case Studies. Cabi Publishing, Trowbridge.

Monzini, P. (2005) Sex Traffic: Prostitution, Crime, and Exploitation. Zed, London

I chose to post a comment on this paper because it is related to my subject, as I wrote my paper on child sex tourism.

First of all, the writer has brought out a number of issues concerning sex tourism, such as the spreading of HIV and other diseases and human trafficking, which is highly related to sex tourism. Also, the writer highlights the fact that globalisation has made it easier for tourists to seek places where they can practice sex tourism (Hall, 2011).

The negative thing about this summary is, that it is really difficult and tiring to read it because there is no chapter division. Also, because sex tourism is such a wide concept, I wonder how widely has the writer looked at the subject in the original paper.

I am also curious if the original paper has some recommendations or any evidence of how governments or organisations are trying to prevent the horrible consequences that sex tourism has on people who sell their bodies for tourists?

All in all, this is a very interesting and important subject and as I wrote about child sex tourism, I know about these issues already. Nevertheless, if I hadn't written about a subject related to this, I would be very interested in reading the whole paper.


References

Hall, J.A. (2011). 'SEX OFFENDERS AND CHILD SEX TOURISM: THE CASE FOR PASSPORT REVOCATION. Virginia Journal Of Social Policy & The Law. 18 (2), p153-202

I have chosen to write about this paper due to underlying issues of sex tourism and how it all started.

The write has gone into very formal detail over what sex tourism is and how it started hundreds of years ago. However only being given a name in the 20th century. This piece of work is very interesting due to sex trafficking being a very big industry and earning billions of pounds each year. However more information on how sex trafficking started would have been interesting.

The paper was in depth and mentioned issues relating to sexual diseases which has spread all across the world. This could have been one of the main reasons of sexual disease spread. Where tourists travel to different places and engage in prostitution or other forms of sex tourism. As Reed 2008 explains that a brothel opening in Germany generates over six million euros a year in profit and attracts hundreds of male customers each day. He later goes on to explain that Germany legalised prostitution which later generated and industry worth over sixteen billion euros.

The paper has discussed in detail of when sex tourism started, when the name for sex tourism was given. And the different forms of sex tourism. However little had been discussed on what this form of tourism creates in money. Although no one will know exactly what sex trafficking can produce, it is still a very serious issue within this form of tourism.

The conference paper should have been paragraphed well as the whole chunk of essay was very long to read in one go, however the work written inside was very insightful and I would like to think that the essay went into more depth of the different forms of sex tourism. Ranging from the prostitution side to the sex trafficking side.

However overall a very good and insightful pieces of work.

Reference
Reed J (2008) Mega-brothels: Has Germany become bordello of Europe [Online]. [Accessed 10 May 2014] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26261221