A/HRC/22/54 (d) Make practical recommendations to protect children from sexual exploitation in travel and tourism B. Commercial sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism: analysis of the situation 12. The commercial sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism (child sex tourism, CST) is the exploitation of children for sexual purposes by people who travel locally or internationally to engage in sexual activities with children. CST often involves the use of travel agencies, transport, accommodation and other tourism-related services that facilitate contact with children. 13. CST is considered a worldwide, growing phenomenon, which seriously harms countless children around the world, often with irreparable consequences, although its illegal nature, it being considered a persisting taboo and a lack of understanding of the issue amongst key stakeholders make it difficult to obtain accurate figures. 14. First brought to the world’s attention in the early 1990s, CST has been an evolving and mobile issue. While it has been recorded as a persistent problem in several locations around the world since those days, it has also been identified as an emerging trend in numerous other destinations. As child protection laws, mechanisms and prevention efforts are strengthened by States, civil society and the tourism industry in some countries, neighbouring countries become obvious alternative destinations for travelling sex offenders. 15. Since the First World Congress against the Commercial and Sexual Exploitation of Children in Stockholm in 1996, where tourism was high on the agenda as a potential vehicle for the abuse of children worldwide, international commitments have been renewed through the Yokohama Global Commitment in 2001 and the Rio Declaration and Call for Action to Prevent and Stop Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents in 2008. 16. In spite of some recent progress worldwide in enacting measures to counter CST, including several projects in cooperation with civil society and the tourism and travel industry to raise awareness and take practical measures, the problem persists and highlights the challenges of an increasingly connected world with an expanding tourism industry. 1. What is the current scope of child sex tourism? 17. Child sex tourism is a specific form of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), which has many overlaps with and can foster other forms of CSEC, including child prostitution, child trafficking,2 sale for the purpose of sexual exploitation and child pornography.3 18. Acknowledging the debates regarding the use of the term “child sex tourist”, the term “tourism” is to include any form of travel, whether short or long term, for business or for leisure, including long-term residential stays. 2 3 According to ECPAT International in its publication Combating Child Sex Tourism: Questions and Answers (Bangkok, Saladaeng Printing Co. Ltd., 2008), children are trafficked internally and across borders to respond to the demand from travellers. Many travelling child sex offenders have produced images of abuse at their destinations, either for their personal records, or to be exchanged with or sold to others through the Internet. Child abuse material can therefore have a direct impact, attracting other child sex offenders to a particular destination, but also maintaining a very profitable criminal activity. 5