Some people do not like tourism simply because they believe that tourists with depraved minds and surplus income in their pockets, will invariably commit evil. They say the chances are high that wealthy tourists will always look for cheap sexual fun, especially with minors and indigent women. The details in this report show that those who dislike tourism certainly have grounds to do so.
Anyone who cares to look along the Atlantic coastal shores of Lagos, Nigeria, or at Kenya’s white sandy beaches in Nairobi, will see aging white men and women stroll arm in arm with local girls and boys young enough to be their grandchildren. They are retired tourists, many of whom are drawn to the Nigerian and Kenyan coasts by the area’s reputation as a haven for sex tourism — especially with minors.
Though Lagos had set the pace initially as sex tourism hub, Kenya’s coast is rapidly becoming a popular destination for people looking for underage prostitutes. Now, observers say that about 30 percent of girls aged below sixteen in Kenya’s coastal areas are involved in some form of sex work. It is also estimated that among Kenyans’ sex workers, one out of every ten began before reaching puberty.
Those who have studied the menace blame the high incidence of child sexual exploitation in coastal areas on widespread poverty and the fact that society tends to accept it.
The issue of poverty in the affected areas clearly stands out. A Missionary Sister of Our Lady of Africa and the coordinator at Pope Francis Rescue Center, a residential and counseling center for victims of sexual exploitation in Malindi, Kenya, Sr. Matilda Baanuo, corroborated the situation.
She said that in 2011, almost 70 percent of the 1.1 million people in the district around Malindi lived on less than a dollar a day, the poverty level established by the World Bank at that time.
Sr. Baanuo regretted that many parents see sex work, including for children, as an acceptable means of earning a living in coastal Kenya. According to her, “a child with a white tourist as a girlfriend or boyfriend is the fastest way to get the family out of poverty”. In such a scenario, young girls and boys are encouraged by their families to look for tourists who will cater for family needs. This means families will purposefully keep the children out of school to free them to search the beaches for “work.”
Inevitably, this development has given a bad name and image to tourism. The authorities in the affected areas will have to sit up and cleanse the stage.
