Global child sex tourism ‘has expanded’ as landmark UN-backed study paints grim picture
Authors identify cheap travel and new technology as factors that allow predators to share information and abuse more easily.
The sexual abuse of children by tourists and travellers is a growing scourge around the globe that has largely managed to outwit attempts to curb it in the last two decades, a major study warned on Thursday.
The landmark report makes for grim reading, with researchers concluding that “no region is untouched by this crime and no country is ‘immune’”.
More than 70 child protection agencies, charities and academics contributed to the UN-backed “Global Study on Sexual Exploitation of Children in Travel and Tourism” – trailed as the most comprehensive review of its kind.
Covering the last 20 years, researchers found that child sex abuse “has expanded across the globe and outpaced every attempt to respond at the international and national level.”
While the nature and level of child sex abuse by travellers varies region to region, the report’s authors pinpoint two major contributing causes for its spread: cheap travel and new technology that allows predators to share information and abuse more easily.
White, Western, wealthy, middle-aged men are no longer the typical offender
The authors say public and policing perceptions of child sex tourism are often outdated.