Sexual tourism

The joint declaration by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) on the protection of children from sexual exploitation in the tourism sector, presented in Yokohama (Japan) on 17/12/01, states that “our institutions rely principally on the WTO’s code of ethics for the tourism industry” (adopted in Santiago, Chile, in 1999), which clearly states that “the exploitation of human beings in any form, in particular sexual, especially when applied to children, conflicts with the fundamental aims of tourism and is the negation of tourism”. Prostitution involving minors is strictly prohibited on French soil. Anyone resorting to prostitution involving minors, whatever their age, will risk penalties up to 100,000 euros in fines and 7 years in prison. Both adults and minors can be charged with this offence. What prostitution really means above all is the existence of the traffic of human beings, organised by procurers, for the purposes of sexual exploitation; international networks of organized crime that make victims of exploited men, women and children, whose everyday reality is alarming and appalling. As stipulated in the preamble of the UN Convention of 2 December 1949 for “the suppression of the traffic in persons and of the exploitation of others for purposes of prostitution”, this traffic is “incompatible with the dignity and worth of a human being.”

See www.world-tourism.org