sex tourism Archives - Shared Hope International

December 12, 2012 by SHI Staff

Overcoming the Past: Understanding Through Renting Lacy

Guest Blog Post by Zen Loveall

False beliefs: I use to think that porn, strip clubs, and affairs were all O.K. I thought this was just part of being a guy. I use to think that my wife’s inability to satisfy me sexually was due to a problem with her. I am not hurting anyone. Women in porn and strip clubs want to do what they are doing and I am helping my mistresses by giving them the sex that they need. TV, movies, bars, clubs, advertising, magazines, and the Internet all fully supported these false beliefs.

What was my reality? I was using sex and fantasy for the wrong things and so too much would never be enough. Regular porn, and small amounts use to be O.K., but over time I needed more and more. Eventually, I was a walking dead man that lost total control of his sexual desires, living a fantasy life in my head, destroying my marriage, causing deep harm to the women that came into my life, all while supporting an industry that destroys women and children.

I was afraid of feeling my feelings and I had a lot of bad feelings. I did not understand that you can’t stop the bad feelings without stopping the good ones. I used the objectification of women and fantasy as an escape. Eventually I had no feelings…I was like a walking dead man. I wanted intimacy but bought into the myth that sex with a woman was intimacy. Sure it is a form of physical intimacy, but it is not real intimacy. You cannot have true intimacy with an object and that is what women had become for me. When I was out with my wife or friends I would just check out all the women in the room and spin fantasies in my mind around how these “objects” could satisfy me.

After I started to come out of my delusion, it took me years to turn this around. For over 15 years in my marriage, I made my wife feel less than and defective because she could not meet my insatiable sexual needs. I will have to spend the rest of my life trying to make up for that crime. I spent years in recovery groups around sex and I always use to wonder why don’t I see more strippers and prostitutes in recovery? The book “Renting Lacy” helped me to understand this. Very few of these young women make it into recovery because most of them die. The movie “The Whistleblower” also helped me to understand what I was contributing to.

When I read the book “Renting Lacy” and contemplated all the women and children suffering from this I cried and cried. I can never make that right, but I can support groups like Shared Hope and The Defenders and continue to come out of my delusion, learn to respect women as people, and continue to learn to be present and truly alive.

– Zen Loveall

May 4, 2012 by Eliza Reock

Back to Our Beginning: Rampant Sex Tourism in Jamaica Compromises Youth Safety

In our 2007 report on sex trafficking markets around the world, DEMAND, sex tourism was identified as the major driving force for sex trafficking in Jamaica. Five years later, as we visit our partners in Negril, Jamaica we see not much has changed. Young girls receiving residential services at our partner’s safe house came to Negril from all over the island. The reason: Negril is a major tourist destination and it is believed to be a place where Jamaicans can make money. Unfortunately, traffickers and facilitators also go Negril to make money, by exploiting young girls and boys through the commercial sex trade.

Although some aspects of the commercial sex trade are different in Jamaica compared to the U.S., many are the same. The trauma these young girls have been through presents itself in similar ways, and our partners must invest time and resources to provide them with spiritual and clinical counseling, life skills, and a safe home.

Our partners in Jamaica work hard to provide youth in Negril with vocational skills so they are employable, and less vulnerable to the demand for commercial sex in this beautiful city. Our partners built a relationship with local law enforcement and educate officials on sex trafficking and the resources available to trafficked youth. Whether a child is a resident at the safe house or a student in the vocational program, vulnerable young men and women have access to a staff counselor who is equipped to address the challenges the youth are facing and educate them about the dangers of sex trafficking.

Since the beginning of our partnership in Jamaica, we’ve heard horrific stories of abuse that the young girls in the program have faced. Yet, we cling to hope. Singing and dancing in church on Sunday, worshipping with the residents of the safe house, and listening to their plans for the future in a life free from trafficking, was a joyful reminder of the difference Shared Hope and our supporters are making as we restore the lives of women and girls around the world.

April 18, 2012 by Guest

Recent Secret Service Scandal Raises Awareness of Sex Tourism

Recently thrust into the media due to the less-than-honorable actions of some members of President Obama’s Secret Service team, sex tourism has risen to the attention of the global community. Sex tourism, defined as traveling to a domestic or international location with the purpose of purchasing sex, has become a multi-billion dollar industry with some seriously questionable repercussions.
One such repercussion is the proliferation of sex trafficking. Sex tourism increases the demand for commercial sex, enticing traffickers to force women and children into the market to satisfy this demand. This leads to child sex tourism, which is defined as traveling to a location with the purpose of engaging in sex with a minor. Although this commercially-facilitated form of child abuse is known to occur in countries with a weak economic structure, it also occurs in the United States on a regular basis.

For example, Las Vegas is a hub for sex tourism, and thus sex trafficking is extremely common. In a 2008 study performed by Shared Hope, over 400 prostituted children were found in Las Vegas in just one month. Efforts to curb child sex trafficking have made some progress, but the problem continues to plague the area. Fortunately, law enforcement agencies are aware of the strong presence of sex trafficking and tourism in Las Vegas, and are developing measures in similar areas in their communities with the potential to become a hub for sex trafficking. For example, Hollywood Casino Toledo is slated to open in Toledo, Ohio this June, so local law enforcement officers are being trained to identify and address sex trafficking.

Countries with a weak economic structure are popular destinations for sex tourism because buyers can purchase comparatively less expensive sexual services with exotic women, men and/or children, with greater anonymity than if purchasing in their home country. A prime example is India. According to the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, “Religious pilgrimage centers and cities popular for tourism continue to be vulnerable to child sex tourism. Indian nationals engage in child sex tourism within the country and, to a lesser extent, in other countries.” Essentially, Indian children are being trafficked in India to provide domestic and international tourists with sex, and Indian adults also travel to other countries to engage in sex with minors.

All forms of sex tourism fuel global sex trafficking. Although the U.S. Secret Service members’ alleged sexual engagement involved adults, their actions are driving the sex tourism industry, thus promoting the brutal commercial sexual exploitation of women and children in the region and around the world.

November 17, 2011 by SHI Staff

Part 4: Hotels, Planes, and Taxis, Oh My! The efforts to stop facilitating child sex trafficking

The fourth component of the Protected Innocence Initiative is “Criminal Provisions for Facilitators.” Hotels are perhaps one of the most well recognized facilitators in the sex trafficking industry. At hotels young children are taken by their traffickers and sold to dozens of men a night. Airlines and taxis also act as facilitators in the sex trafficking industry.

Through the Protected Innocence Initiative, Shared Hope is providing recommendations on how to strengthen state laws to adequately penalize and criminalize the facilitation of child sex trafficking. These measures include criminalizing the facilitation of trafficking through the state human trafficking law and making the promotion of child sex tourism illegal.

Recognizing the critical role facilitators play in the exploitation of children, some hotels and airlines have taken it upon themselves to no longer act as facilitators in the child sex trade. Here are some of the positive steps hotels and airlines have taken in order to stop child sex trafficking.

Airlines are often used by traffickers to transport their victims to domestic and international locations. Carol Smolenski, U.S. Director of End Child Prostitution, Child Prostitution, and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT), says that sex tourists fall into two categories “preferential child abusers” or “situational child abusers.” “Preferential abusers” have a preference for having sex with children, while “situational abusers” may not be particularly interested in children, but may try having sex with them to try something new, particularly while abroad. Smolenski believes that the second group may be educated through public awareness campaigns to change their behavior. For instance, in order to discourage child sex trafficking, Air-France runs in-flight videos against child sex tourism. These videos are played on 94 of the airline’s long-distance flights and are viewed by up to 46,000 passengers a day. Ten other airlines have also used the video, though currently no United State’s airlines have agreed to show videos discouraging child sex tourism on their flights.

U.S. airlines have taken a stand to fight child sex trafficking through the “Flight Attendant Initiative” which was designed by Innocence at Risk. The “Flight Attendant Initiative” requires airline personal to be educated on recognizing and reporting human trafficking on flights. Flight attendants also wear wristbands with the National Human Trafficking Hotline (1-888-373-7888) so they can report suspicious activity from the air. So far, one third of American Airlines’ 19,000 flight attendants received the training. It is expected the program will soon expand to other airlines.

A second industry that has taken a stand against child sex trafficking is the hotel industry. ECPAT released a document entitled “The Code” that hotels and travel agencies may sign to show they are working to combat child trafficking. Since it’s inception in 1998, 1,030 companies have signed the ECPAT Code of Conduct to combat child sex trafficking, though only six American companies have signed.

These efforts, combined with stronger state penalties for those individuals and organizations that facilitate the sale of children, will help end child sex trafficking. To find out the level of your state’s legal response to facilitators, join us on December 1 when we release all 51 state Report Cards at the National Association of Attorneys General winter meeting in San Antonio, Texas. We hope you’ll tune in the rest of the week for more information on the initiative.