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Introduction
Tourism is of course a global industry. This paper considers the darker aspect of this industry which is sex tourism, parts of which have been fuelled by sex trafficking. As Carolin et al. (2015, p. 1) comment:
[…] One of the ways the hospitality industry is involved in exploitation is through its conscious or unconscious participation in sex trafficking of men, women and children (Goh, 2009; Sassen, 2000, 2001).
Whilst the term trafficking is commonly used, the [United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 2009] argue that the term “trafficking” is misleading because of the focus it places on the transaction rather than the human aspects of the crime arguing that “enslavement” is more accurate. As such, human trafficking exploration and reporting falls under the umbrella of “Modern Slavery”, a concept relating to specific legal situations relating to forced labour, debt bondage, forced marriage, slavery, slavery-like practices and human trafficking. Common to all of these experiences is exploitation, in that the individual has limited rights and they are unable to refuse or leave because of violence, coercion and the abuse of power (International Labour Organisation, 2017).
The most recent figures of modern slavery (International Labour Organisation, 2017) identify that during 2016, 40.3 million people were victims of modern slavery. Of these, 24.9 million were forced into labour such as construction, agriculture, factories and, of interest to this paper, the sex industry. Gender differences in modern slavery are also apparent in that it is more prevalent for women and girls, accounting for 71 per cent or 28.7 million victims (Human Rights First, 2017). However, when it comes to forced labour in the commercial sex industry, women and girls equate to 99 per cent of victims, and of these, 21 per cent are children (Human Rights First, 2017).
As we can see, gender is a significant factor in global sex trafficking and has attracted interdisciplinary research and analysis (see below). There is a wide range of intersecting perspectives drawn on in this paper that contribute to an understanding of sex trafficking and tourism including socio-economic perspectives (Brooks and Devasayaham, 2011; Brooks and Simpson, 2012; Goh, 2009), human rights perspectives (Cheah, 2006; United Nations, 2000; United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees (UNHCR) 2005), migration perspectives (Voronova...