Summer is coming to an end and it feels both nice and troublesome in different ways. Stability is good and boring. Everyone returns to their everyday lives and summer becomes but a memory. Summer is high season for ice cream, travel and sex tourism. Sex tourism is a rapidly expanding industry that grows more expansive in and around popular travel destinations. It’s harder to close your eyes when you know what goes on beneath. I talked to some friends of mine who had been in Alanya in Turkey. They’d had a good time but they had also seen prostitutes and children in the street. It was very widespread. Prostitution is distinguishing even in Alanya, a city where young people from all over Europe come to have a good time.
Thailand is another popular travel destination among young adults, especially Swedes. I have never been there myself. Thailand has wonderful scenery and culture, food and beaches and the people are very pleasant. Thailand is also known globally for its sex industry. Children from ages 10-12 sell their bodies approximately 10-15 times a day – some even as many times as 20-30. Sex tourism is big all over the world; an estimated 10 million CHILDREN sell their bodies. About 40.000 children work as prostitutes in South Africa.
Sex tourism actually has a pretty simple explanation: First of all, it’s easier to find and hire prostitutes, and it’s cheaper too. But I also think it has to do with the fact that we take vacations away from ourselves. We take vacations to get away from our superego, our morality and to break our restraints.” What happens in (where-ever) stay in (where-ever)”.
I love to travel and I also enjoy taking vacations away from myself. I’m totally okay with going “all-in” on your vacation, swimming naked, binging on ice cream. But 10 million child prostitutes? A single child prostitute is one too much. It has to stop. Something can be done about this and we need to do these things. Thailand, Greece, Africa, Brazil are much closer to us now than 50 years ago and sex tourism expands as the world shrinks. Human trafficking is the fastest growing industry in the world. This is not okay.
Maria for Realstars
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