Splintered Lives - Barnardo's

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chapter
7
Sex tourism and sexual abuse of children
Whilst child abusers have no doubt travelled to target children for decades, awareness
of 'sex tourism', and the implication of white western men in abuse of Southeast Asian
women and children has emerged over the last decade and particularly in the 1990s
(Christian Aid, 1995; Ireland, 1993; O'Connell Davidson, 1995, Truong, 1990, Wilson,
1995).
The growth and internationalisation of the sex industry in Southeast Asia begins with
American military bases, and the Korean and Vietnam wars. All military commands
have taken it for granted that troops need sexual outlets, including - and perhaps
especially - during war. Thus, ensuring sexual access to women has always been part of
military strategy. How this has been effected varies according to the location, and to
some extent local cultures. In the case of Southeast Asia it was possible to recruit local
women, since a bar culture already existed, as did an indigenous public sex industry
(Enloe, 1989, Truong, 1990). The earliest growth was in the Philippines around the US
naval bases. Western soldiers undoubtedly viewed Asian women through racist
stereotypes which constructed them as exotic: sexually sophisticated and/or innocent
and child-like.
The next phase in the story involves a different strand of imperialism: international
economic policy as determined by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Following loan defaults and economic crises, from the 1970s onwards all new loans or
re-scheduling of old ones, involved stringent conditions being attached, including what
are known as 'structural adjustment' plans. Thus all kinds of requirements, targets and
goals - political and social as well as economic - were specified and repayments were to
be made in 'hard' currency, usually US dollars. These policies tied countries into global
capitalism and gave the West enormous power to determine agricultural, industrial and
social policies; to decide what the 'strengths' or 'assets' countries should develop were.
The 'unspoilt' beauty and warm climates were frequently defined as 'assets' to be
developed through tourism. The presence of a developed sex industry was often
implicitly, but even at times explicitly, seen as a tourist resource (Truong, 1990).
These strands of 'development' policy, combined with the neglect of rural areas and a
shift from subsistence to cash crop farming fundamentally changed local economies
(Enloe, 1989). In the absence of other options tourism drew in many young women to
the sex industry from rural areas. The dislocation which always accompanies rapid
social change has also resulted in the phenomenon of 'street children': children who
have to find ways to survive anyway they can. It is these children, and some who are
trafficked within or from outside countries, who are the majority of those involved in
prostitution and pornography in South East Asia and Latin America. Recent reports have
highlighted that there are hardly any girls in some rural villages in the Philippines and
Thailand, so many of them have been recruited either honestly or deceitfully into the
sex industry (O'Grady, 1994). The custom of US soldiers has been increasingly
enhanced by relatively wealthy Western men, who either make their own way or are
participants in organised sex tours. The institutionalisation of sex tourism is illustrated