Child Sex Tourism

If sex tourism is the dark, if debated, side of tourism, then child sex tourism represents the line in the sand that should never be crossed. While sex tourism involving adults provokes a variety of opinions and positions (Cohen, 1982; Oppermann, 1998; Kempadoo et al., 2005; O’Connell-Davidson and Sánchez Taylor, 2005; Sánchez Taylor, 2006; Day, 2007; Eades, 2009), child prostitution involving tourists is universally condemened and high-profile cases, such as the trial of Gary Glitter, point to the depths of public revulsion against such behaviour. The last 20 years have seen vocal campaigns against child sex tourism, resulting in changes in national legislation in many countries, statements and taskforces from the World Tourism Organization, the inauguration of World Congresses against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and a universal determination to stamp out a crime and a moral outrage. Despite the public outcry and changes in legislation, however, child sex tourism continues and, in some ways, the moral indignation that the subject arouses obscures certain aspects of the situations in which children caught up in prostitution live and work. There is still a dearth of information about how children meet clients, what is expected of them and their paths in and out of prostitution (Montgomery, 2001a, 2001b). Their clients are even more unknown and there is very little research (as opposed to anecdotal) evidence that discusses their motivations, their modus operandi or their choices about which countries they will visit and where they can find opportunities for sexual activity with children (Ennew, 1986; Montgomery, 2008; for an excellent overview of the available evidence see O’Connell-Davidson, 2005). At both national and international levels, legislation to protect children, although much heralded, has proved inadequate, and left unanswered important questions about enforcement and practical help for the children affected. In this chapter, I examine the legislation in place to tackle the problem of child sex tourism, and contrast this with a case study from Thailand of a small community in which children worked as prostitutes in order to support their parents and themselves. In doing so, I am not arguing for any moral ambivalence or ambiguity in discussions of child sex tourism. Rather, I wish to point out the lacuna between those discussions and the lived realities of the children.

Conclusions Mapping a Research Agenda

We began this book with a review of the development of two hitherto relatively separate domains of study that we feel have much to learn from each other. To date, scholarly work on the social phenomena of crime and tourism have largely eschewed cross-disciplinary engagement. The chapters that followed have attempted to bring together the scant research literature that does exist on the subjects of crime and tourism, whilst examining different forms of victimisation against tourists, various types of offending or deviant behaviour by tourists, and responses to crimes by/against tourists by the authorities. Given the paucity of available literature, it is inevitable that these chapters have relied primarily on writing from the distinct perspectives of criminology or tourism studies respectively, depending on the subject expertise of the author. However, many contributing authors have bravely accepted our challenge to attempt to step into each others’ world and open up the crime and tourism nexus. To all our contributors we owe a considerable debt of gratitude for beginning what we hope will be an ongoing and productive dialogue between these subject domains. It is our intention in this final chapter to outline briefly the markers of a research agenda for new scholarship in the two subjects and for potential areas of research collaboration.

Property Crime and Tourists

This chapter addresses the extent to which tourists are at risk of property crimes. It starts with a discussion of the difficulties of measuring crime risk that largely replicate those in mainstream criminology, but with the additional problem that the number of tourists – in the general population or who are victimised – is rarely distinguished. Accepting these limitations, police statistics, victim surveys, newspaper data, and offenders’ accounts of their preferred targets are used to confirm that tourists are indeed overrepresented among the victims of property crime. This seems to apply across different offence categories, such as burglary, vehicle theft, robbery/theft from the person, and fraud. The final section attempts to explain the findings. Combining routine activity theory, opportunity theory and rational choice theory, four dimensions are identified that help explain why tourists consitute a high risk category: rewards, justifiability of target, guardianship and accessibility.

Vulnerable Victims

Being safe on holiday is an expected requirement. Places that develop an unsafe reputation can be substituted by alternative destinations that are perceived as safer for tourists. Beyond the obviously unsafe places in the world, where governments advise against travel, individuals must make up their own minds about where to go on holiday. One of the distinctive features of the tourism industry is that we cannot ‘test-drive’ a holiday beforehand. Judgements about where to travel are often made on the basis of imperfect knowledge and generalisation, and tourists learn about destinations from brochures, adverts and the media (Smith, 1989; Brunt, 1997). We typically think about what the destination has to offer in terms of accommodation, its environment and things to do (Crompton, 1979; Krippendorf, 1987) and many of us do not consider the issue of crime when we are planning the next holiday (Brunt et al., 2000). Are we more at risk of crime as tourists than in our everyday lives? Most of us would probably prefer not to think about this, and certainly the tourism industry does not want us to think such things in case we decide to stay at home. Whilst it is true that only a minority of tourists suffer criminal victimisation while on holiday, it is important to explore variations in the crime experiences of different tourist types. Crime patterns vary according to factors such as the nature of tourism, its scale, the type of development, the season, as well as variations relating to the tourists themselves and issues associated with their behaviour. This latter issue is the focus of this chapter – what categories of tourist are particularly vulnerable to criminal victimisation?

Violent crime and tourists

Given limitations of space, this chapter is restricted to a conventional legal definition of violent crime as involving harm or the intent to harm. Even using this restricted definition, though, violence can take many forms, varying for example according to motive or the extent of injury. Perhaps for this reason, evidence of an overall relationship between tourism and victimisation is less clear-cut than in the case of property crime. This chapter therefore focuses on three scenarios which involve tourists as the victims of violent crime: - Teens and 20s holidays; - Homicide, especially but not exclusively against backpackers; - Politically motivated attacks against tourists and tourist centres. Using the model introduced in the previous chapter, it is argued that disproportionate risk might be explained in terms of: rewards, victim status, guardianship and accessibility.

Dark Tourism and Sites of Crime

Dark tourism (sometimes referred to as thanatourism) has become established in the last decade as a niche tourism area. Death, suffering, visitation and tourism have been interrelated for many centuries (Foley and Lennon, 1996a; Seaton, 1999). Indeed for many years, humans have been attracted to sites and events that are associated with death, disaster, suffering, violence and killing. From ancient Rome and gladiatorial combat to attendance at public executions, sites of death have held a voyeuristic appeal. As previously recorded, the site of hte first battle in the American Civil War was sold as a potential tourist site the following day (Lennon and Foley, 2000) and viewing of the battlefield of Waterlook by non-combatants was recorded in 1816 (Seaton, 1999). These sites associated with death and disaster that exert a dark fascination for visitors are frequently linked to crime locations and the perpetration of lawful and unlawful acts. The sheer diversity of forms of dark tourism sites are significant and have been the subject of emergent research (see for example: Foley and Lennon, 1996a; Lennon and Foley, 2000; Seaton, 1996; Seaton and Lennon, 2004; Dann and Seaton, 2006; Ashworth, 1996; Sharkley and Stone, 2009). However the relationship to criminal acts and punishment for crimes is an important one that has received limited direct attention.

Introduction Tourism Studies and Criminology

The ambition of this book is to begin a project that on the face of it might appear somewhat baffling. Holidays are surrounded by images that convey an escape; a promise of freedom from the pressures and problems of everyday ‘normal’ life. Be it idyllic seascapes, soaring mountains, luxurious therapies, adrenaline-pumping extreme rides, or monumental cultural icons, the images suggest that on holiday we are, primarily, getting away from all those awkward, uncomfortable, damaging and life-threatening bits of human existence that constrain the promised good life. The criminal underworld, on the other hand is the bad life personified. Here the vilified perpetrators of hte worst excess of human depravity dwell. And, despite a a voyeuristic fascination with the criminal world when kept at a safe distance through the mediation of the news, or popularised through literature and film, this dark side of human behaviour is necessarily cordoned-off, regulated, incarcerated or even extinguished from sight. Why then bring these two seemingly oppositional domains of the social world together? It is not that the falsehood of the separation of holidays and crime go unnoticed. Most of us know that the seduction of the holiday bubble bursts when travel inconvenience, marital dispute, frightening encounters with ‘other’ strangers occur, or when unlawful actions maim and kill. We also know that crime is not cordoned off by tourism and can occur anywhere and at any time, but somehow this has yetreflected in the research agendas of tourism studies and criminology. It is as if we have internalised the popular images of holidays and crime and thus closed our collective sociological imaginations to this important interface.