ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the development of sex tourism as part of the tourism industry. It focuses on human rights violations in the sex tourism industry. The chapter describes the origins and legal responses to the development of sex tourism. In 1995, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) General Assembly published the WTO Statement on the Prevention of Organized Sex Tourism. Sex tourism was in the statement defined as “trips organized from within the tourism sector, or from outside this sector but using its structure and networks, with the primary purpose of effecting a commercial sexual relationship by the tourist with residents at the destination”. In other countries, the selling or buying of commercial sexual services in any form is illegal. Social structures promoting short-term marriages can also serve as a front for sexual exploitation. Social norms, particularly related to the discrimination of homosexual and transgender persons in society, also contribute to sex tourism.
