4.2 Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children In Travel & Tourism In Costa Rica

In this second part of chapter 4 I will elaborate first on the reasons how and why the child sex tourism industry in Costa Rica is sustained. I will approach this section by first discussing the general issues followed by an elaboration on the demand and the supply factors playing a role in this industry. In the second section I will first discuss the fight against child sex tourism from a general point of view, followed by an elaboration on the prevention, attention and sanction part of the fight.

4.2.1 Sustaining The Child Sex Tourism Industry In Costa Rica

“One should never blame the underage persons, the only ones responsible are the adults”

Of course it would be great if anyone would have the same opinion as this participant of a Code of Conduct Workshop. Unfortunately this is not the case, even far from it. With making this comment this participant made clear that there are people blaming the underage persons for being involved in the commercial sex industry. I can even say that this is one of the main factors, among several others, sustaining the commercial sexual exploitation of children in Costa Rica. All the information I gathered points to a combination of demand and supply factors sustaining the child sex tourism industry in Costa Rica. I believe one cannot put the blame on just the supply factors or just the demand factors, although several respondents do have another opinion about this.

This goes back to chicken egg debate I also discussed in the theoretical chapter. Is the supply feeding the demand or is the demand feeding the supply. This is a difficult question, which is even more difficult to answer. Some of my participant researchers argued if there would be no demand, there would be no supply: “We think in the demand is the response, the demand is the responsible fault of the commercial sexual exploitation. No matter if the person comes from Costa Rica, from Europe, or the United States” (OIT/IPEC, February 2007). One American expatriate I talked to in a bar in Jaco argued tourists come here because of the huge supply of prostitutes in general in Costa Rica. I would argue that both factors are enforcing each other and thus it is necessary to look at both parts when looking at the reasons why the child sex tourism industry in Costa Rica is being sustained.

Definitions

During my time in Costa Rica my idea that commercial sexual exploitation and sex tourism are very much overlapping phenomena turned out to be true, especially in Costa Rica. The boundaries are not always that clear in this country. This comment can be viewed in two different ways; the boundary between child/adult and the boundary between exploitation and voluntary prostitution, which I also discussed in the theoretical chapter. Also here several participant researchers argued that the commercial sexual exploitation of children goes hand in hand with a thriving adult prostitution industry. This is definitely the case in Costa Rica, since prostitution is legal in this country for adult prostitutes and clients, however not for pimps and other intermediaries, as a representative of a NGO informed me. A representative of a tourism company for example agreed with that, arguing that when you have prostitution, you will have prostitution with under-age.

The boundary between exploitation and voluntary prostitution is also blurring in Costa Rica, as there were several opinions in my group of participant researchers on this issue. Some of them, such as a representative from Paniamor, asserted that prostitution, adult or child, is always a case of commercial sexual exploitation, for example because almost all adult prostitutes started in the business when they were underage and because they have been sexually and/or physically abused in their childhood. A representative of another NGO also agreed with that: “It is now argued that it is called exploitation when you are younger than 18 years old and that it is called prostitution when you are older. However, this is not right at all, because it is always exploitation, if you are young or old. It is definitely also exploitation with adults, because they get paid much less and have to pay a lot to the barkeeper, the taxi driver and more of these intermediaries. In this way they don’t have anything left, so it is always exploitation” (February, 2007).

However, there were also participants researchers who did not see adult prostitution as a bad phenomenon: “Look, prostitution is not a bad business in itself. It is a way out, but you should not forget that if there is a very ugly man, abandoned by his wife, where nobody wants to sleep with, this man also has a certain right, I think. In the jail in the Netherlands they pay prostitutes for people who are in jail, to help certain people. If you agree with it or not. You assume that this woman doing this job, which you should not look down upon I think, is not being forced and is fully capable to make her decision about wanting to do this job or not. However, with kids it is totally different, they are not capable to make decisions” (Representative tourism Company, February 2007) During my interviews, informal talks and workshops, although my focus was on child sex tourism, the term commercial sexual exploitation of children in general was used most often, thus both by tourists and locals as they are very much intertwining. To my opinion and those of several of my participant researchers, local abusers can be tourists as well, because they travel as well within Costa Rica to visit prostitutes, children and adolescents, which I have noticed myself during the weekend I spend in the popular beach town Jaco. A representative of a NGO also agreed with that:

“I think sex tourism is also when a Tico from San José goes to Tamarindo to search for girls. The only difference is that probably this Tico will not use a travel agent, and maybe even will not use a hotel, but goes to an uncle who is living in that place. Thus, the international sex tourism brings more money”.

Many prostitutes, children and adolescents visit popular tourist places, such as Jaco, during the weekend:

“Jaco is presented like one of the main focal points, right. But it is more like a tourist spot, so prostitutes are not necessarily from Jaco, they are trafficked to this tourist part. I heard that, when you take the San José buses on Saturday afternoon from San José, they are full of prostitutes coming to look for tourists, right and they take the bus at 4/5 in the morning back to San José. Tourists are here so it is fast here for the businesses. It attracts prostitutes from everywhere. It is not necessarily that if you see a hundred prostitutes that they are all from Jaco. Even though it is difficult life, it is somewhat better for everybody I would say than in other parts of Costa Rica” (Representative tourism company, February 2007).

Thus, sex tourism is not only about the traditional case of foreign white western man visiting Costa Rica to have sex with local women and girls. However, one should look at the local and foreign exploiters separately, because one could ascribe different motivations to (foreign) tourists and locals. Nevertheless, I found out that one should not give preference to one of these two regarding the fight against it, as these two have a lot to do with one another. You need to tackle both in order to effectively deal with the problem of commercial sexual exploitation of children. I will discuss this further in the paragraph on the fight against child sex tourism in Costa Rica.

Maybe one has noticed that I have made a difference between the words prostitutes, children and adolescents to describe the people involved in the prostitution industry. I do not want to call children involved in the prostitution industry child prostitutes, following the opinion of a representative of the University of Costa Rica, as this is one of the main reasons that still many people in Costa Rica blame the children. This representative argued that they have fought to change the name from child prostitution into commercial sexual exploitation: “Because prostitution was being applied as to an adult. That the person was really like from a free will doing that type of activity and when you say child prostitution people were understanding that children also have that, lets say, capacity of saying: oh yes I want to do this. So, we wanted to change the focus on, this is not a free will of a child, but it is an exploitation, so that an adult will manipulate this kid in order to get to him or her. So that is why we tried to change it in that way” (March 2007).

This representative pointed out that it is better understood now, mainly by professional people, from universities and NGO’s. The general population is still not completely aware of this distinction and why they are making this distinction. However, there is an increasing awareness that children should not be involved in those things and if they are involved it is not because they want to do it but because of the manipulations. Continuing more specifically on children, according to representatives of NGO’s the commercial sexual exploitation of boys, girls and adolescents is: The utilization of boys, girls and adolescents, with or without his/her consent, for the sexual satisfaction of the adults in exchange for a reward in money or in kind to the underage person or third persons.

A representative of a NGO argued the commercial sexual exploitation of boys, girls and adolescents is a violation of the fundamental human rights of children and adolescents. It is a form of sexual abuse, a forced and harmful activity and a modern form of slavery. A representative of another NGO considered commercial sexual exploitation of children as being similar to slavery and forced labor. Paniamor perceives the problem of commercial sexual exploitation of children and adolescents in Costa Rica as follows: In the surroundings where Paniamor is working in sex tourism is seen as a form of commercial sexual exploitation. I do realize that in these surroundings one is not dealing with and discussing the possible positive forms of sex tourism, such as couples on a honeymoon, as discussed in my theoretical chapter.

I do keep that in mind when saying that in these surroundings, where people are dealing with the phenomenon of commercial sexual exploitation of children, adult sex tourism was seen as prostitution tourism, by some not viewed as something bad and by others as a form of exploitation. It is also important to mention that they consider expatriates in Costa Rica as locals. Thus, in studies they only differentiate between foreign tourists and locals, which include expatriates. In the lower part of the figure one can read the terms: Cliente Prostituyente, Facilitador, Proxeneta, Rufían, and Tratante. Costa Rica uses all these terms to indicate different types of exploiters, the people who are directly or indirectly exploiting children. They thus make a difference between the cliente prostituente, the client; the facilitador, the facilitator; the proxeneta, the pimp who is not family; the rufían, the pimp who is family; and the tratante, the trafficker.

Forms And Networks Of Exploitation

Having discussed definition issues, I will now elaborate on the forms and networks of exploitation that sustain the child sex tourism industry. Besides the increasing problem of pornography and its technology, which help to sustain the child sex tourism industry, there is one other increasing problem that has a lot to do with the child sex tourism industry: trafficking. The phenomenon of trafficking is very much interrelated with sex tourism, as an important purpose of trafficking often is the commercial sexual exploitation, for both adults and children.

Many participant researchers have pointed this out. A representative of a NGO argued that they have seen many victims of trafficking turning up in tourism places and hotels. Costa Rica is being considered as the bridge between South America and North America. Costa Rica is a receiving and a sending country for trafficking, according to this representative. However, with underage persons the internal trafficking is a much bigger problem between the different tourism zones. A representative of a NGO confirmed this saying that in Tamarindo, trafficking victims are being found which have been trafficked from for example Limón and Puntarenas. A representative of the University of Costa Rica pointed out the following about this:

“Trafficking is increasing or the awareness of trafficking probably, is increasing. But Costa Rica is a country in which it’s very difficult to get kids in or out without permissions and papers. Now we have found some cases in which these perpetrators did that. But trafficking here concerning minors it is more internal trafficking. So bringing kids from rural areas to urban areas and those things. But it is more difficult to get these kids out. What has been a little bit more common is people bringing kids illegally from other countries, Nicaragua and Guatemala. But taking Costa Rican kids out is not really so common” (March 2007).

According to a representative of the International Organization for Migration several developments in the last couple of months pointed out that the problem in Costa Rica is much bigger than was thought initially. There have for example been two incidents with boats full of illegal migrants at the coast of Costa Rica, which were discovered accidentally. Also several incidents with regard to illegal required visas, in which several employees of the migration department where involved, play a role in this argument. These indicators are a sign that the problem is quite big in Costa Rica. A representative of a NGO argued four out of ten persons that cross the border are underage.

The International Organization for Migration has not official statistics yet to back up their argument, so it is difficult to indicate the numbers, background, gender and nationality of both the traffickers and the victims. Legally seen, it is still difficult to prosecute traffickers, thus also here there are no good statistics available. As in many countries also in Costa Rica there sometimes is confusion about the difference between smuggling in migrants and trafficking of children and adolescents. A representative of a NGO confirmed this and pointed out that this results in more trouble to understand the problem. Both situations happen as there are also many migrants from neighboring countries coming to Costa Rica to earn some money, a significant percentage of them as prostitutes. The discrimination against these migrants definitely plays a role. I have seen with my own eyes the graffiti on the walls everywhere which were shockingly discriminating to especially Nicas, people from Nicaragua. According to a representative of a tourism company it is clear that a lot of prostitutes in Costa Rica are from neighboring countries.

All the prostitution comes to Costa Rica, he said, because there is a lot of tourism in Costa Rica. He based his comment on a situation that happened at the beginning of 2007. Two hundred prostitutes where caught in hotel Del Rey, 200 illegal immigrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic. They might come here with the promise of a job, with the intention to be a prostitute in Costa Rica, or being trafficked. In Costa Rica one can observe the trafficking routes leading to certain places, where the problem of commercial sexual exploitation is frequent. These places are mainly popular tourism places such as Jaco and Tamarindo, two of the popular beach towns on the Pacific Coast I have visited and which by Paniamor have been mentioned as two main problem areas. Key positions at the border where trafficking across borders occurs, are Paso Canoas and Sixaola in the south and Penas Blancas and Los Chiles in the north. For internal trafficking San José takes the lead. The following map, provided by Paniamor after extensive research demonstrates this.

A representative of the University of Costa Rica argued the commercial sexual exploitation has two ways of manifesting itself. One is very small on a local level; parents that are exploiting their children and sending them to other neighbors. It is not possible to see those children in the street offering themselves, so you do not see it. The second manifestation is the occurrence of commercial sexual exploitation in organized crime networks, which especially for the tourism plays a big role. These crime networks operate in a similar fashion as international drug trafficking networks, in an environment where prostitution is legal for the clients and the prostitutes. A representative of a tourism company asserted that the human situation in Costa Rica got worse, as he used to sleep with the windows open and this is not possible anymore and children used to be able to play safely in the streets, which is also not possible anymore. He further argued: “Since the corruption came into the government, the situation has been changing a lot, so. Nobody cares about anybody, nobody cares about you. Nobody cares about me, so you have to worry only about you. And we see that every day, I mean, in the news, in the real life, everyday. For me the corruption is in everything, everything and everybody you try to push down” (March 2007).

A representative of a tourism company in Jaco argued that in Jaco the commercial sexual exploitation of children happens in an environment ravaged by gambling, stealing and drugs and that it is a really difficult problem specifically for a rural city like Jaco. I have seen the extensive drug use also in another popular beach town, Tamarindo, with my own eyes. I went to the toilet and everybody was sniffing cocaine, which costs only 10 dollars a gram, making it very attractive for foreign tourists to buy and use it. A representative of a NGO commented on this drug problem in Tamarindo in our conversation. I have visited such a dangerous neighborhood in the capital city of San José with a Costa Rican friend and he told me that the children I saw outside in the street were involved in the commercial sexual exploitation. Generally, the children involved in commercial sexual exploitation in Costa Rica are not seen on the streets, because it happens in a hidden and secret manner. However, a representative of the University of Costa Rica argued, this does not mean that we do not have a big problem with this.

“I guess it is more hidden. I guess in these 8 years more children have come off the streets, but that does not mean that there are less children involved or trapped in commercial sexual exploitation. What it means is that the networks are becoming more sophisticated. They have found other ways to organize themselves and operate, but away from the eye of the public and the police” (March 2007). According to a representative of a government institution, these networks are pushing the children in the commercial sexual exploitation. There has also been a more clear presence of child porn in the last years, a representative of the University of Costa Rica argued, and that is another new manifestation. Of course there was child porn eight years ago, but now it can be done in a more hidden fashion.

Thus, technology plays an increasing role in the commercial sexual exploitation of children, also for tourists. According to another representative of the University of Costa Rica more technology is being applied to the networks, making it also more efficient in this way in terms of getting kids. There are many websites promoting Costa Rica as a sex destination, offering packages including accommodation, food and girls, a representative of a government institution argued. A representative of a tourism company pointed out that the ICT [the Costa Rica Tourism Institute] is trying to get rid of this image as much as possible, however there are still many pornographic sites, where Costa Rica is being offered as a sexual destination. As expressed by one of the respondents: “There are certain hotels and travel agents especially in Miami who, for example, offer a one week package, including five nights in San José and one day fishing. They spend those five nights in San José only in brothels. These are the famous ‘fish packages’ from Miami, which only harm our country” (Representative tourism company, February 2007).

Besides improved technology, a representative of the University of Costa Rica also sees older kids, used by the ones who run the network, reaching out for younger kids, pulling them into the network. The networks keep getting stronger, another representative of the University of Costa Rica argued. As the commercial sexual exploitation is so hidden nowadays, it is not possible to say how many children are involved in the commercial sexual exploitation in Costa Rica. A representative of a NGO also commented on this problem:

“CSEC [commercial sexual exploitation of children] is not the same as five years ago. Now there is more hidden and there are more trafficking victims. Before you used to see the kids on the streets. You came to the city and you saw the kids in the park there, you know, standing up, like…,you know. Now you don’t, you don’t see underage kids in the streets anymore” (January 2007). Private apartments, condominios, are very attractive for commercial sexual exploitation in tourism nowadays. I have experienced this myself because I have not seen children involved in commercial sexual exploitation walking in the streets when I was on my first trip to Costa Rica and my mind was not with this issue yet. A representative of the University of Costa Rica argued the following about this:

“If you not go with that in mind, it is probably gonna be invisible to you. It is invisible to most people in Costa Rica. People don’t know that that is a problem; they don’t see it on an everyday basis. When you ask them and explain to them what it is, you know, sex tourism or commercial sexual exploitation in general, they start to think: maybe what I saw that day that was one of these problems, you know. But it is hard, for most people, if you don’t clearly try to assess it as a problem like that, you are not going to see it” (February 2007).

Also a representative of a tourism company was commenting on this issue, arguing that ‘normal’ tourists do not come to Costa Rica with sex in their minds. They do not see Costa Rica as a sexual destination but as a destination characterized by hospitality, warm people, good food, exotic beaches, wildlife and nature. He asserted that only people who are ‘into that’ will see it. All the participant researchers agreed this makes it impossible to tell or even guess how many children are involved in this industry. Everybody, however, agreed that it constitutes a very serious problem in Costa Rica: “We have a really big problem with commercial sexual exploitation, but it is not in the streets as you would suppose it to be. It is a lot more organized” (Representative University of Costa Rica, February 2007).

Structural Factors Behind The Exploitation

Having discussed the forms and networks of exploitation, I would now like to turn to the structural factors sustaining the commercial sexual exploitation of children and more specifically the child sex tourism industry in Costa Rica. As explained in the theoretical chapter it is important to look at the child sex tourism phenomenon as a complex phenomenon which needs to be placed in a broader context. The child sex tourism industry in Costa Rica has developed in the context of the historical, political, cultural and economical factors discussed in the first part of this chapter. The following discussion will implicitly refer to certain of these structural factors, as several of them were put forward by the participant researchers in the interviews, namely:

• Historical context of colonialism
• The state restructuring
• Socio-economic implications

It has definitely become clear that Costa Rica has a big problem with regard to the commercial sexual exploitation of children. This can also be seen in the news from the last couple of years, a representative of a NGO pointed out. For all the countries, especially development countries, sex tourism is a problem nowadays, several participant researchers argued. Several respondents attributed the current situation to several historical developments. A representative of a NGO argued the problem is very old and dates back to the colonial period when the victims where very young, 11 or 12 years old, partially because the life expectancy was not that high then. This representative also mentioned the underdevelopment of the country which has emerged in the last couple of decades as being part of the context in which the problem has been able to grow:

“20/30 years ago the model of development was based on the social welfare state. When they started to change, I mean, things started not to work that well, in things like sexual exploitation. A lot of things started to come out, in the last 30/20 years, when all the programs of adjustments and transferring to privatization and all this started to happen. The middle class that was gigantic in Costa Rica, started to shrink, so the people that were, lets say, lower class, started to get in poverty, real extreme poverty and the middle class started to be lower class. If you check the Human Development Index statistics, you will see that Costa Rica has changed to be unequal faster than the other nations in the region” (January 2007).

According to a representative of a tourism company the rich people in Costa Rica are as rich as the rich people in the Netherlands, but the poor people in Costa Rica are many, many times poorer than the poor people in the Netherlands. The middle class is disappearing, he argued. A representative of a NGO stressed that this happened because of the pressure of the World Bank to implement reforms, such as restructuring the state and privatizing of companies.

Another historical important factor which assisted in the development of more specifically the sex tourism industry was the way how Costa Rica started with promotion of the country in its wish to become a tourism destination. According this representative the marketing of the tourism industry was not sufficiently differentiated. She argued that probably already since the 1950’s, when the tourism industry in Costa Rica more or less started, the problem of commercial sexual exploitation in tourism begun.

For many years Costa Rica has encouraged tourists to come. They never have said, however, what kind of tourists should come. It is only a short while ago that the commercial sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism got recognized as a problem within Costa Rica. In 1998 the president of Costa Rica was still denying that the problem existed. According to a representative of a NGO: “Our president, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, denied the problem. And that is an example of the society. The problem is very, very old” (January 2007). According to a representative of the University of Costa Rica, the problem of commercial sexual exploitation has been great lately, mainly because in the past it was not seen as a problem at all.

Probably it was happening many years ago, but it was not considered a problem of the whole society. It was because of the organizations that work with children that the topic of commercial sexual exploitation of children began to emerge as a problem: “I would say that maybe 10 years or less, the problem started to be named by the organizations that work with children and teenagers in the country, Paniamor being one of the main ones. And, they started to talk about this is not right, this is exploitation and it started a long way into changing the name of child prostitution into sexual exploitation. And so I think, because Costa Rica became in these years a country very successful for tourism, we also became a country vulnerable for entering tourists that are looking for sexual relations with not only with minors, but also with women and men” (representative University of Costa Rica).

So the NGO’s started to tackle the problem, followed by the private industry and finally also the government became interested in the issue, according to a representative of a NGO. She stressed that in Costa Rica, compared to its neighboring countries, the private tourism industry is very strong in relation to the government. According to a representative of the University of Costa Rica the commercial sexual exploitation of children in tourism is a big issue in this country, probably more than any other country in central America definitely and probably one of the countries that has a bigger problem with sex tourism in Latin America and the whole world.

The (foreign) child sex tourism industry can be considered a huge problem in Costa Rica not because of the huge numbers a representative of a NGO argued but because of the money that goes with it. Foreign tourists pay a lot for this, which gives the business more strength. He also commented on the fact that Costa Rica is one of the strongest tourism destinations within Central America, which makes it attractive for all kinds of tourists, thus also sex tourists. A representative of another NGO argued that Costa Rica is easy to reach for the Americans and the services and facilities are great, all factors that pull the tourists.

Several of my respondents mentioned the influence of the US as a negative influence on the existence of the commercial sexual exploitation of children in Costa Rica. A representative of a tourism company saw the problem of commercial sexual exploitation mainly as a United States problem, with their companies and possessions in Costa Rica. This is an old problem he argued, because already in the beginning of the 1990’s there was a development based on drugs and sex. 80% of the coasts of Costa Rica are owned by foreigners, a representative of a NGO argued, mainly expatriates from the United States. Several of these coasts are also very popular with sex tourists. About these foreign owned coasts, this representative argued: “That is what I call the colonized part of Costa Rica” (January 2007).

Cultural Factors Behind The Exploitation

The problem in Costa Rica is mostly about adolescents between twelve and eighteen years old and not that much about younger children, several of my participant researchers pointed out. This fact corresponds to the theory of O’Connell Davidson in the theoretical chapter that most people have misconceptions about the nature of child sex tourism, as they mostly associate pedophiles with the issue of child sex tourism. Most victims in Costa Rica are girls, although boys are also victims, especially on the Caribbean coast, where European women have sex with dark-colored underage boys, a representative of a NGO argued. The fact that the problem in Costa Rica is mainly about adolescent girls has very much to do with the tolerance in society regarding the issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children.

A representative of a NGO pointed this out as follows: “When everybody hears about sexual exploitation of children with the word children everybody says: it should not happen, it is terrible. When you say well, the main victims in this are adolescents 12 and older they react: Oh my God, but they like it, they are sexy, they are hot” (January 2007). This representative stressed this is not true and that it is necessary to turn around all the myths and stereotypes they have. Some interesting statistics concerning the victims of commercial sexual exploitation and the community perception about it are given by the OIT/IPEC resulting from an earlier research they conducted in 2003. These statistics give an idea about the tolerance in the Costa Rica society with regard to the commercial sexual exploitation of children:

• 59% of the respondents knows or has seen a person under age 18 in commercial sexual exploitation in their community and 39% has not.

• 46% of the respondents know of places in their city where persons under age 18 are in commercial sexual exploitation.

The following table from this research shows the general (supply and demand) reasons why commercial sexual exploitation exists according to interviews with adults. This social tolerance, according to Paniamor, is resulting form a denial, lack of knowledge and stereotyping about the occurrence of commercial sexual exploitation in the country. This has everything to do with an important factor which influences the context in which commercial sexual exploitation of children is thriving in Costa Rica significantly: the ‘Machismo’ [masculinity] aspect. This aspect is one of the reasons that the commercial sexual exploitation of children and thus also the child sex tourism industry is sustained.

This cultural aspect of Costa Rican society is why the commercial sexual exploitation of adolescents [still children], is still accepted and socially legitimized and plays a role in both the supply factors and the demand factors. It is thus the reason why commercial sexual exploitation of children is still not considered as a crime by the exploiters and the ones who are exploited are not considered victims. In this cultural context the hierarchy is as follows: first men, then women and then children. The girl child is at the lowest ladder of the hierarchy, so a representative of a NGO argued:

“The children, we call them minores, minors, because they are minus. They don’t have rights, they are not intelligent. The conception of children is very, very wrong. They don’t have the right to say anything, they don’t have the right to participate, and they don’t have the right to exercise their rights. This is our paradigma, the children are in the lowest level and if you add the prostitution it is terrible” (January 2007)

These inequalities in society, due to age and gender, go together with an imbalance in power, which lead to the myth which justifies violence. This problem is deeply rooted in the history of Costa Rican society and in the minds of the people and leads to some of the before mentioned reasons why the commercial sexual exploitation of children in Costa Rica is such a problem. The “Machismo” culture is characterized by several aspects. I think it is significant that almost all Costa Rican women I met told me: “Ticos look very hansom, but their character, pfff”.

A representative of a NGO stressed several times that the ‘Machismo’ is a really big problem in the commercial sexual exploitation of children. I think the fact that Costa Rican men do not want to marry an educated woman is a sign that nothing has changed yet in this regard. This representative from a NGO pointed out that this is the reason why so many highly educated women are single in Costa Rica; it is very difficult for them to find someone. The whole society and all the structures in the society are penetrated with this ideology. She argued the following:

“The people look at women like an object, an object we can use when we feel like. This also happens in married relationships. People don’t have sexual education. It is only a biological approach. The teenagers don’t have enough information about their sexuality. The Catholic religion is a little bit guilty in this. In Costa Rica for the women sex before marriage is bad. For the men things are different. Now it is less frequent, but not long ago it was very common for a father to bring his son to a prostitute to have his first sexual experience with a prostitute.

Men are afraid for their sexuality, because we need men and we don’t need gays, because we need machos. That is our culture. Because of that it is very important that they have their first relationship with a woman. The homosexuality is terrible for our culture. So, people and thus also men do not have information about their sexuality and about relationships. It is a plus when the man is very promiscuous, when they have a lot of women, because they are machos, that is good, that is a value, it’s a good value, here in this machismo society, in Latin America. It is okay, I am very strong, I have a lot of women” (January 2007)

Also a representative of another NGO commented on the fact that many fathers take their sons to a prostitute to initiate them to ‘manhood’. It is because of this culture that men are looking for different experiences and looking for young girls, because when you have many young beautiful girls you are a real man. Having an ‘unused’ woman is highly valued in the eyes of other men. They feel more powerful with a younger woman. According to this representative this is the case for many countries in the world and maybe the only difference in their activities is because of the laws. Also the incest and the sexual abuse in the home is a big problem emerging from this Costa Rican culture and this happens in all classes of the society, a representative of a NGO argued. Young bodies are viewed in the same light, a representative of another NGO argued; as objects that can be appropriated or purchased.

This is true both within the context of commercial sexual exploitation or outside of it. A real man should be able to seduce women, paid or not. This representative has found out in interviews with men (2006), that with regard to commercial sexual exploitation there is a high tolerance towards sex with underage. They believe that if they pay for it there is nothing wrong with it. They just pay for a service, so that is okay. She has heard the following expressions from the interviewed men which demonstrate this:

• There is no minimum age, just minimum bodies.
• If you can buy a new car why shouldn’t you be able to buy a young woman or underage person?

According to this representative this whole ideology is the reason that victims do not see themselves as victims and exploiters do not see themselves as exploiters. Women also play an important role in reproducing the hierarchical macho culture. They resist and support these cultural structures at the same time. I experienced this “Machismo” culture myself during my stay in Costa Rica. All the Costa Rican men I met through my guest family had or were having affairs with one or several women while having a girlfriend or wife. However, one of those Ticos told me that Ticas are having affairs just as much. Although everybody knows about all this, nobody talks about it. This probably is part of the culture I experienced that Ticos are not looking for a fight.

They do not say it directly in your face when they do not agree with you. I met a lot of Ticos, but almost all of them were divorced. I can only mention two couples who were still together. A representative of a tourism company also mentioned this reality, saying that although people are strictly Catholic in Costa Rica, there are a lot of divorces and a high number of unmarried mothers. This is one of the ways women resist the ‘machismo’ structures. It happens at all levels of the society. It is not uncommon that women on the highest position of the ladder in society have three children from three different fathers.

A representative of a tourism company was wondering where the prostitution stops, and where a relationship with economic interests starts, because many women in Costa Rica are looking for a husband with money. Sometimes they even get married and divorce after a year in order to receive alimony. This representative argued the morals in this country are floating in a grey area. Another example of the Machismo culture I experienced was a young couple, friends from my guest family, both 21. The girl already had an 8 year old daughter from another man and with her boyfriend she had a second daughter, 2 years old. This boyfriend did not allow her to do anything.

She wanted to go to the gym, he did not let her, she wanted to go the McDonalds with her daughter, and he did not let her. For me this was shocking to see. Several representatives of NGO’s argued that it is the women who support the Machismo culture in the way how they are raising their kids. So women also play an important part in this regard. I would say that probably the fact that adult prostitution is legal in Costa Rica is coming from this ‘Machismo’ aspect of the Costa Rican culture. However, at the same time this also includes a little bit a contradiction, a double moral, as at the same time Costa Rica is a very religious country, with most people being Roman Catholic.

A representative of a NGO told me that this even can have influence on the way the rights of women in Costa Rica are being approached: “There is a ministry for women in Costa Rica. A while ago the minister of this department, a woman, was a member of a very religious, conservative group. This had influence on the way women’s rights were approached”. Thus, in a conservative Catholic way, which supports the existing unequal power structures. The ‘Machismo’ aspect is not the only cultural factor which has an influence on the commercial sexual exploitation of children. I had a very interesting conversation with a Dutch expatriate running a hotel in Jaco about his ideas regarding the cult ural factors in Costa Rica which influence the commercial sexual exploitation in Costa Rica:

“Although I live here now for many years, I will never be able to get used to the Costa Rican mentality. Here there is a terrible, idiotic, retarded, hypocritical catholic situation. They always want to present the situation better than it is. You should compare it to the way how it used to be in the Netherlands in the past with the church. When you ask your grandparents about it you will find a lot of aspects which you will find here in Costa Rica today. It is for example not possible for a child who got pregnant through rape, to have an abortion. It is really unbelievable. With situations like that the lamps in my head turn off, I really cannot understand that. It is a little bit running on the spot. And this has to do with their mentality. They do not know the word no. They always say yes, but they actually mean no. Everything in Costa Rica has to do with ‘the lie’. You will see ‘the lie’ everywhere in Costa Rica. So this also means that Ticos never apologize for a mistake they made. Corruption is also a type of lie. The white lie is incorporated in the Costa Rican culture” (February 2007).

This is also the reason, he argued, that the situation in Costa Rica is not getting better at all. It is absolutely going into the bad direction, he asserted, and that is a really sad thing to realize. The tourism is deteriorating, the drugs business is increasing and this is connected to the prostitution industry. The peace we had in the past, he pointed out, has been replaced by an unsafe feeling. Also ecologically seeing, there are being made big mistakes, which results in deterioration of the very assets Costa Rica is promoting.

These developments result in the increasing attractiveness of neighboring countries for ‘normal’ tourists. In our conversation this representative of a tourism company stressed several times, that although the commercial sexual exploitation of children is a despicable thing, he considers the drugs situation even worse. Crack is a free fall, he argued; you will never be able to get out of it: “I know a lot of people who sell this crap. I hate these people. They steal, they are irrational because of their addiction, do not think about consequences and that is really terrible, really terrible” (February 2007).

As the situation of commercial sexual exploitation in tourism is being influenced by specific demand and supply factors, it is interesting to see what these specific factors actually are that push the children in this industry, thus the factors that increase the vulnerability of these children, and the specific factors why people (foreigners) think they can (ab)use these children. One of the requirements of the Code of Conduct is training for tourism personnel from all levels in the hierarchy of a company. In these workshops (in Spanish) the participants discuss their ideas and views with relation to the issue of commercial sexual exploitation and write them down.

In this way we can get an idea of the mind and knowledge of the population working in the tourism industry. Their answers can be divided in ideas and opinions with regard to the demand as well as the supply within commercial sexual exploitation. They also discussed their responsibilities in this issue. In the following two subsections I will present the supply factors and the demand factors mentioned by the participants of the workshops. The responsibility issues will be discussed in the part on the fight against child sex tourism.

4.2.1.1 Demand Factors

A representative of a NGO argued that in the tourism areas children are most vulnerable to become involved in the commercial sexual exploitation. Also the poorest communities are to be found in the tourism areas. She argued there is thus a direct relation between tourism and the existence of commercial sexual exploitation. A representative of another NGO also made a difference between certain regions and foreign sex tourists. In the area of hotel Del Rey in the capital city San José mainly gringo’s, Americans, can be found. On the coasts, especially the Caribbean coast, there are relatively more Europeans, like Italians and Germans. On the Caribbean coast European women can be found, exploiting boys. Although the majority of the foreign sex tourists come from the United States, a representative of a NGO sees an increase in exploiters coming from Spain and Asian countries, which they did not have at all five years ago. This representative refutes the argument of a representative of one of the tourism companies that Dutch tourists are not coming to Costa Rica for sex tourism.

According to the representative of the NGO there is a problem with Dutch women going to the Caribbean coast to have sex with under-age boys. Compared to the girl victims, it is a minor problem, but still it is a problem. All the participant researchers agreed that most of the foreign exploiters come from the United States. A representative of the University of Costa Rica argued, however, that they found so many cases of commercial sexual exploitation in their community that does not have to do with sex tourism that at the end it was just a small part. Several respondents have mentioned this. Especially the ICT [Costa Rican Tourism Institute], but also ACOPROT [private non-profit association for professionals in tourism], was stressing this over and over again. The commercial sexual exploitation of children in Costa Rica is mainly a local problem and less an international tourism problem.

Although the majority probably is local, a representative of a NGO argued, tourists bring more money. They make and build the industry, because they hire cars, use taxis and it is more expensive. It is also more organized with tourists. As the tourism industry is so big in Costa Rica, it is logical to say that with the good tourism you will also attract the bad tourism, people who think they can do whatever they want, a representative of another NGO argued. Several participant researchers, for example ACOPROT, argued that the international tourism demand for commercial sexual exploitation is fuelled by the fact that sex tourists who have been in Costa Rica, go back and tell their friends about their experiences. Also pornography plays a role in this, making it easier for exploiters to produce pornography and show it to their friends. Another difference between the local demand and the (foreign) tourism demand was noticed by a representative of a NGO:

“The locals have other kind of girls. The girls that are involved in this organization of sexual tourism are more beautiful, these are not the girls that we see on the streets. These girls are in another position and they get more money for this” (February 2007). When I went to hotel Del Rey, a prostitution hotel, I was not allowed to enter the bar, but I was able to take a look inside and I saw the most beautiful girls inside, hundreds of them, and a few tourists. With regard to the Code of Conduct workshops the participants shared their ideas about and views on the demand factors influencing the commercial sexual exploitation situation in Costa Rica writing them down on a big sheet of paper. Their comments can be divided in two subcategories:

• The characteristics of the exploiters, which includes the intermediaries, the pimps and the clients themselves.

• Reasons why foreigners come to Costa Rica to commercially sexually abuse children.

The participants of the workshops attributed the following characteristics to the exploiters:

• It is like a network.
• Exploiters are guys with money, they are rich, they wear brand clothing and accessories.
• Exploiters are professors, teachers from school, doctors, people from the government, owners of the hotels.
• Exploiters are family fathers, uncles, brothers.
• Exploiters are old men or retired persons who don’t have the freedom in their country which they do have outside their borders because of fear for the laws, society or their wives.
• Both national and foreign exploiters come from different socio-economic levels.
• National exploiters can be family members, teachers, neighbors, friends, colleagues and authorities, such as police and judges.
• Foreign exploiters are both tourists that come directly with the purpose to engage in these types of relations with minors and tourists that are guided by other motivations (for fun or business) and who get attracted to sex tourism. They travel alone.
• Exploiters are controlling, aggressive, immoral, manipulative, insecure, sadistic, psychologically crazy and sexually sick persons, who don’t have social skills, are not communicative with regard to their facial expressions and have no control over their sexual desires.
• Exploiters possess the power of persuasiveness.
• Exploiters are party people.
• Exploiters are homosexual.
• Exploiters are heavy build persons who have a bad personal appearance.
• Exploiters are single persons who live without a family.
• Exploiters have no fear for the judiciary and are sly persons to avoid legal problems.
• Exploiters consider sexual exploitation as a lucrative business.
• Exploiters have fundamental knowledge about the trafficking in persons.
• Exploiters are prestigious persons who leave their country to commit these crimes.

The representatives from Paniamor, who can be called experts in this field, argued that there are three types of exploiters in Costa Rica: the situational, the preferential and the pedophiles. The majority of the exploiters in Costa Rica are men, and the majority of these men are local clients. According to the Department of the United States, an increasing percentage of the sex tourists originate mainly from the United States, Canada and Germany. Looking at the exploiters that have been caught the following list gives some idea of the types of exploiters:

• George Clark, 43, de New Jersey, science and math teacher.
• Thomas y Christine Taylor, spouses from Carolina del Sur. Requested underage persons to have sex with Christine.
• Vincent Springer, 42, mechanic.
• Arthur Kanev, dentist from Boston, extradited by the United States to Costa Rica for commercial sexual exploitation of boys, girls and adolescents.
• Engineer, male, 42.
• Baker, male.
• Sinaí Monge, a woman sentenced to 8 years in prison for pimping.

This last case of a woman being a pimp occurs often in Costa Rica. This woman acts as a friend, in order to gain the thrust of the girls, which is easier for a woman than it is for a man. In order to get a better idea of this a representative of Paniamor told the famous story about Sinaí Monge: “Senai was a pimp, a madam. She had kids, teenagers, very beautiful girls. She even made them more beautiful, you know, died there hair, put eyelashes on. She had a very good business, but she is in jail now. What she did, she recruited the girls in malls, those that were out of the school, the ones that left the system and were always hanging out in malls, not doing a lot. She followed them, the ones that were very beautiful, they were always lonely, and she started to make an empathy relationship with them.

You know, like, “oh you”, and at the end they were recruited for sexual exploitation. And they had a very good secret, even the parents didn’t know about it, for years it happened and they didn’t know. Because they were telling the parents that they were going for a trip, to a pool, or something and Sinai connected them with clients, with a big, big network of clients, for bachelor’s parties, for parties, whatever parties you wanted, and this happened you know. The clients paid a lot of money for each girl, like a 150 dollars for an hour. She called the girls and got a car with a chauffeur and send the girls to the house where the exploiters where, a lot of very high placed persons. Somebody alerted the police, like a neighbor who was seeing the girls coming in and out and they started to investigate. I think one of the traditional police got undercover and passed as a client and that is how they got her”.

The participants of the workshops and the people I have interviewed have mentioned several reasons why foreigners come to Costa Rica to commercially sexually abuse children. In the following list I have divided these reasons into structural factors and cultural factors.

Structural Factors

• In the past there was no law which protected the children.
• Costa Rica is a free and democratic country.
• The incapacity to carry out these activities in their own country also because of controls in their own country.
• Higher sanctions in other countries.
• No knowledge about the laws.
• Because exploiters know prostitution is legal in Costa Rica.
• The ease of migration, neighboring countries with a lot of prostitution and little control.
• For the trafficking of drugs.
• Costa Rica is a geographical bridge.
• The world-wide situation with regard to for example Sars, terrorism and the economy.
• The geographical nearness and ease of infrastructures that hide the reality of the activity why a person comes.
• Comparing Costa Rica to the rest of Central America, Costa Rica is a safer country.
• Bad law enforcement, lack of punishments in legislation, the impunity of the law and it is difficult to implement Costa Rican legislation.
• There are no laws that punish this.
• The migration laws are very open.
• Lack of laws regulating the communication media (internet, magazines, cable television).
• The authorities and the general public exercise little supervision, there is little involvement of the state.
• Lack of credibility in the authorities.
• Costa Rica is a free and democratic country.
• Immigration.
• The great demand for prohibited sex on a global level.
• Globalization.
• Because foreign exploiters think Ticas accept the situation because of their economic position.
• The value of the dollar versus the value of the colon.
• They seduce a minor, offer him or her money, drugs, alcohol and finally carry out sexual acts.
• Economic necessity (underdevelopment)/lack of work.
• Money inflation.
• The clean image.
• The easy access to the country and the quality of its (tourist) product.
• The infiltration of foreigners in the tourism sector.
• ‘Additional services’ hotels.
• Taxis.
• Travel agencies – interests, fishing.
• Cruises.
• The existence of facilitators, persons who gain some profit from it.
• Many hotels, nightclubs etc are used by North Americans to promote these services.
• The tourism development implicates a lot of prostitution and addiction to drugs.
• Many times these services are offered in places to visit, massage salons, disco’s, nightclubs, etc..
• The commission the client gives us.
• Attractiveness of tourism packages.
• Propaganda on the internet portrays Costa Rica as a country offering young persons and promoting Costa Rica as a sexual paradise in general.
• The existence of world sex archives.
• Bad publicity in general; through internet, television, magazines, movies. • Through news articles.
• Gossip press maximizes the problem.
• It is promoted through other persons through personal testimonies, word-of-mouth advertising.
• Persons take child pornography home with them for their friends.
• The existence of publicity that is degrading the feminine image.
• There does not exist a mechanism for information against the child exploitation (video, folders), which all the tourists receive.


Cultural Factors

• Exploiters mix pleasure tourism and sex.
• The mentality is more open, they don’t have the same moral principles as a Latino, thus they look for an easy market to convince with dollars.
• It is much easier to manipulate a child or an adolescent than an adult.
• Because of a bad sexual education (tourists).
• Costa Rica is seen as an “exotico = erotico” destination.
• Costa Rica is a country without a legal, social and economic development.
• Cultural ignorance: they think that women wait for them at the airport.
• Sex tourists who go to third world countries have a poor and distorted vision seeing these places as places where money can buy everything including the innocence of girls, boys and adolescents.
• Anonymity (nobody knows me), they come here because nobody knows them.
• The security of not getting diseases, such as sexually transmitted diseases.
• Sexual satisfaction.
• The possibility in the offer.
• Sometimes they misinterpret freedom as being licentious.
• Because of the beautiful attractiveness of our women.
• “Andropausia” [male menopause], a mental sickness.
• Because of having the opportunity to dominate the sexual relation.
• The satisfaction because of the inexperience of the child.
• Social indifference.
• Lack of commitment on the part of citizens to report.
• Corruption.
• Lack of consciousness in the country.
• Bad communal organization.
• Passive culture.
• The society permits it.
• Irresponsibility of the adults.
• Lack of information or training on the sexual level.
• Lack of attention of the parents in the home and lack of control by the parents.
• Social dissolution – attention in education.
• Loss of family values.
• Lack of communication between members of the family.
• Lack of reporting on part of the victims because of several factors: fear, shame, revenge, lack of support.
• The luxury the adolescents want to live in, which their parents cannot give them • Drugs.
• Exotic atmosphere.
• Bad reputation.
• The sexual symbol “mujer Latina” [Latina woman].
• Consumerism.

It may be clear by now that many of these factors have to do with a lack of sexual education of the exploiters, not only in Costa Rica but also with respect to foreign tourists. Also other factors of course have been mentioned, but I am a firm believer that it should be a moral thing, and that the reasons that there are laws should not be the reason why somebody is not exploiting children. The power structure and the power imbalance is very important in understanding why these people think this way, a representative of the University of Costa Rica argued. They do not see their activities as exploitation. Why do foreign tourists they can come here to buy our children, a representative of a NGO was thinking.

Why do they not exploit the children in their countries? Because they know they have laws, this representative argued. “In this part of the world, they think women are exotic, that the sexuality is different for us, ‘Latinas calientes, Latinas calientes, fiesta!’” (representative NGO, January 2007). In Jaco, a popular beach town, I had a conversation in a bar with an American expatriate, around 50 years old. He did not know why I was there. He told me: “All the Costa Rican girls you see in this bar now, are for sale” (February 2007). He was also telling me about a porn conference that was taking place that same weekend in Jaco and he invited me to come to an after party in the mansion of one of his friends. Shockingly I refused. A representative of a NGO has experienced an unbelievable case of an exploiter who walked into her office:

“One day I received a sexual exploiter here in the office. He came to talk to a lawyer. He, a man around 65 years old, said he had a problem. He told me that he was in love with somebody and that this person was being exploited. So I asked him who are you then? He told me a whole story about a teenager and all that she had passed through in her life and everything, having a drug addiction and living on the streets. So I asked, and you are her uncle or something? And he said: Well, no, I had sex with her, I paid her for sex. And I was like: what! I reported him to the prosecutor’s office, but I did not tell him I was going to do that and I asked him more questions. He told me that he exploited the girl, that he started paying her and that he got in love with her. He told me he never did do any harm to her. He said: no, because I paid her, I bought her the food she liked, I bought her jeans and I gave her money. I am helping her. So I was like: Oh my God! He never thought he was doing anything wrong. He just walked straight into our office” (January 2007).

It is unbelievable that tourists assign different rights to the children in Costa Rica than to the children in the United States, Canada or Germany. It also has to be mentioned that the xenophobia plays a role, for both the foreign tourists and the local people. Another important part of the exploiters which one should not forget and is named often by all the participant researchers is the role of the intermediaries, as they are part of the organized criminal networks. The organized criminal networks need these individuals in order to operate. Taxis have been mentioned by several of the participant researchers as playing an important role within this network, especially now the whole situation is occurring in a more hidden fashion.

They are often the ones who bring the girls to the private apartments. A representative of a tourism company pointed out that taxi drivers are ‘easy’ intermediaries as they are anonymous and the exploiter is anonymous. In a hotel you often have to show your passport or some other kind of identification, which is not necessary in a taxi. Many of the intermediaries, such as taxi drivers, have jobs that are really bad paid which makes them ‘vulnerable’ to participate in these kind of activities. A representative of a NGO also stressed the role of taxis in the commercial sexual exploitation of children, and more specifically in Tamarindo.

Some interesting statistics concerning the exploiters within commercial sexual exploitation are given by a representative of OIT/IPEC resulting from an earlier research they conducted in 2003. This representative argued that most of the exploiters generally are men. The following table gives information on the age of the exploiter. This big age difference between the client-exploiter and his victim points to a power imbalance because of the dominant role of the client-exploiter. OIT/IPEC also looked more at the difference between tourist foreign exploiters and local exploiters and even looked at tourist Costa Rican exploiters, which points to the presence of sex tourists.

The role of intermediaries, which can also be called exploiters, is very important in the commercial sexual exploitation of children in Costa Rica, mainly because the phenomenon is so hidden as explained before. The following statistics from the OIT/IPEC also demonstrate this.

4.2.1.2 Supply Factors

With regard to the Code of Conduct workshops the workshop participants also shared their ideas about and views on the supply factors influencing the commercial sexual exploitation situation in Costa Rica writing them down on a big sheet of paper. Their comments can be divided in two subcategories:

• The characteristics of the victims, why are minors involved in commercial sexual exploitation?
• Supply factors (other) which influence the involvement of minors in commercial sexual Exploitation.

The participants of the workshops attributed the following characteristics to the underage victims:

• They live in extreme poverty.
• They lack of ways of living, food, etc.
• They love money.
• They search for easy money, they took the wrong road, because they prefer the easy way.
• They aim for an economical improvement, adhere to the promise of a better life.
• They provide these services in exchange for opportunities, such as studies, traveling, car, etc.
• They are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, thus also provide sex in exchange for drugs or alcohol (or food). It is a circle of drugs – addiction – sex.
• They have easy access to drugs.
• They have a psychological trauma/psychological problems.
• They have a low self-esteem.
• They experience/have experienced (family) problems: trauma, pressure, sexual abuse, physical abuse.
• They have been abandoned.
• They experience freedom.
• There is lack of God: a lack of knowledge and fear of God.
• They do not attend studies (school and college).
• Many of them are forced.
• They are having debts.
• They are sexually dependent.
• The factor of ‘fashion’ plays a role.
• They are greedy.
• They are curious.
• They do it because of their own will/permission – for their pleasure.
• They want to work themselves up to another social class.

It is interesting to notice that people think the victims experience freedom. At first sight, one might think this is of course not true. However, I would like to argue that this possibly is true in the minds of these victims as they have escaped family violence and abuse from their home. They may feel that now they are the only ones who are deciding what is happening with them and they experience this feeling as freedom. The participants of the workshops and the people I have interviewed have mentioned several reasons why children become involved in commercial sexual exploitation. In the following list I have divided these reasons into structural factors and cultural factors.

Structural Factors

• Development of the society.
• Little consciousness within many authorities created the problem.
• Lack of cooperation from the State.
• Lack of protection by the State.
• Lack of support from the state.
• Lack of attention within the State institutions.
• Lack of interest of the government and the society.
• Legal weakness.
• Lack of preventive programs.
• Rigidity of the law.
• Not following the law/breaking the law.
• Migration from rural areas to the city.
• Lack of security/protection to report.
• Lack of information – family, school, government institutions.
• Poverty (survival and ambition).
• Lack of employment.
• Marginal zones, vulnerable places.
• Illiteracy.
• Not attending school.
• Costa Rica is market leader in tourism.
• Trafficking in drugs.
• Blackmail.
• Deception in job offers.
• Promises.
• Slavery.
• Profitable transaction.
• Existence of intermediaries.
• Selling of information.
• Pornography on TV or in the cinema, only violence, sex, and robbery, etc.
• Promotion of sex on the internet and through several other media.
• No control and supervision with regard to what children watch on TV.

It is important to mention that it is a combination of factors that pushes the children into the commercial sexual exploitation, as for example not all poor children get involved in the commercial sexual exploitation. As much plus you will have the more vulnerable you will be to the commercial sexual exploitation, a representative of a NGO argued. With regard to the factors drug addiction, family violence and sexual abuse within the family in combination with the commercial sexual exploitation, a representative of a NGO pointed out that it is a circle. The family is not protecting the children, the children go to the streets to look for love and protection, have a low self-esteem, are being pulled into the commercial sexual exploitation, thinking that they deserve to be treated like that, start to use drugs to forget that they are in the commercial sexual exploitation, and continue being exploited because they need money to buy the drugs.

The organized crime networks often use drugs in order to keep the girls in the network. However, it is also possible that the child is using drugs when still living at home, changes into an uncontrollable child and runs away or gets kicked out of the home. The child goes to the street and the same circle begins. Another factor that is being mentioned by this representative in another conversation is the vulnerability factor of single-parent families, more precisely single-mother families. “The mothers have a low salary and then she needs to work more hours and she does not have enough money to put the children in day-care. They need to work more hours and the children are alone, resulting in an increased vulnerability to go to the streets and meet exploiters” (January 2007).

When the parents cannot support the family, the child often has to help in bringing food on the table, which does not necessarily have to be commercial sexual exploitation. This can also be another form of child labor. I would like to share a story a representative of a NGO told me about this factor: “There is a case of a girl I see almost every day by my town. And she sells newspapers and she is very pretty. And I always see, look at her and she is not going to school anymore, because she is there at, whatever time, she is there. So I presume she is not going to school. So this girl goes selling and I see the men stopping and buying newspapers and I think: one of these days a man is going to tell her, you know: do you want to make 10.000 colones?” (January 2007).

It is interesting to see that the consumerism plays an increasing role in the reasons why children get involved in the commercial sexual exploitation. This is pointed out both by representatives of several NGO’s. There are for example male victims that go to regular schools and that have a normal family, saying that they enjoy doing this. They do not perceive themselves as victims; they think they use the clients. Although as said before, girls also often do not perceive themselves as victims, they perceive themselves as victims more than boys. A representative of a NGO has experienced the consumerism factor from first hand.

“And also, another problem is the children, especially the women adolescents, they want to have everything, clothes, shoes make-up in this consumer society, because we are like United States here, all the clothes and everything is similar. We saw this in here, in our organization. They want to have, for example, jeans from a special brand and this costs money. So, they look for money to pay for this and the commercial sexual exploitation is an extra opportunity for them” (February 2007).

Another problem for these girls is that they do not want to go to school, because it is too hard for them and because of the stigmatization. A representative of a NGO pointed to another factor which none of the other participant researchers has mentioned, the fact that many of the victims of commercial sexual exploitation are practicing some kind of witchcraft or magic, because they think this will bring them luck. This representative also often sees that these women have a dependency relationship with regard to their boyfriend or husband and that they are inclined to pick out the worse men in society. It is also important to mention that many migrants are involved in the commercial sexual exploitation. A representative of a tourism company for example explained this as follows:

“What happens is that those girls from Nicaragua and Colombia come here to look for a job. They do not get this job, because of the unemployment. The government is getting more strict with issuing work permits. Those girls come at my door and ask me for a job. When I ask if they have a work permit, they do not have one. So, unfortunately I cannot do anything for them. As a result these girls walking around in the streets, meet some other girl from Colombia, ask if they can spend the night at her place and she agrees. However, after three days there is no money left for food and then they see this other girl having money to eat and than your principles, morals and values disappear fast. Getting into the industry is not that difficult as getting out of the industry” (February 2007).

A representative of a NGO connected the fact that many of these girls (migrants and Ticas) are not able to find a job to the fact that they did not learn the right social and other skills from their parents. A representative of a tourism company remembered that he always heard stories about women wanted to find and marry an American man, in order to get out of the poverty and improve their situation. I also would like to mention here one of my own experiences with a Tico I met during the weekend I was in Tamarindo. I met him at a party and we had a nice conversation when he suddenly did me a proposal in exchange for my MP3 player. I was shocked. Some interesting statistics concerning the victims of commercial sexual exploitation are given by a representative of OIT/IPEC resulting from an earlier research they conducted in 2003. I am adding these statistics to the comments made by workshop participants and the participant researchers in order to strengthen my arguments.

57% of the victims of commercial sexual exploitation in Central America have been kicked out of home in at least one occasion by their families or have run away from home. 55% of the victims of commercial sexual exploitation in Costa Rica have had some sexual experience before the age of 12, thus experienced childhood sexual abuse. This is the highest number of all the countries that have been researched by OIT/IPEC as the rates for the other countries were: Guatemala, 20%; Honduras, 39%; Nicaragua, 36%; Dominican Republic, 23%; and Panama, 30%. In these countries in 94% of the cases of sexual abuse, the abusers where men, independent of the sex of the minor. After the age of 12 33% of the child victims in Costa Rica had some experience of forced sex or sex against their will. Looking at all countries, in these cases the abuser was a man in 94% of the cases. 41% of the girls interviewed in Costa Rica had at least one child.

OIT/IPEC argues that having children for whom they are responsible puts great pressure on the adolescent mothers to find income, while not having education and labor training puts them at enormous risk of being involved in commercial sexual exploitation. At the same time, sexual exploitation creates great risks for the babies, ranging from HIV infections, abandonment because there is no one to care for them, to violence. At the time of the interview only around half of the adolescent parents lived with their children precisely because of the difficulty of caring for a baby or a small child in the conditions in which they are found, and in this sense, a vicious circle of abandonment and lack of protection is experienced from generation to generation. CEPIA is seeing this in their organization, the vulnerability of the children of working mothers.

At the time of the research of OIT/IPEC (2003) only 8% of the victims of commercial sexual exploitation were actually studying. All these statistics show that the factors that increase the vulnerability of children to get involved in the commercial sexual exploitation include childhood sexual abuse, lack of protection by the family, especially an absent father, and being kicked out of their home and school. The OIT/IPEC research also shows that drug use is an important factor within the commercial sexual exploitation. 40% of the children interviewed argued that their addiction to drugs and alcoholism started because of the sexual exploitation.

4.2.2 Combating Child Sex Tourism In Costa Rica: A Futile Fight?

t should be clear by now that also the fight against children must be viewed within a broader framework, because the situations in which children in Costa Rica live and have to deal with, influence the fight against child sex tourism in Costa Rica in one way or another. The way how Costa Rica is dealing with children’s rights in general is part of this fight as the problem of commercial sexual exploitation is part of a wider complex network of human rights violations. In the first part of this chapter I shortly mentioned the human rights conventions and protocols Costa Rica has signed and/or ratified, including Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

Also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination are violated by the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Besides these international treaties there also have been several international conferences which have put the issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children on the agenda in Costa Rica, a representative of OIT/IPEC argued, such as:

• World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, 1993.
• The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, 1995.
• The World Congress against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Stockholm, 1996.
• The Regional Government Congress on the Sexual Exploitation of Children in Montevideo, 2001.
• The Second World Congress against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Yokohama, 2001.
• The Follow-Up Meeting of the countries of Latin America and The Caribbean to the Second.
• World Congress in San José, 2004.

Representatives of international organizations, non-government organizations, and countries from all over the world reinforced their commitments in the latest two events in order to fight commercial sexual exploitation of children and they gave the funds necessary to achieve this goal. Until now Costa Rica has made some efforts to accomplish what international organizations demand. According to the human rights commission, the level of accomplishment in Costa Rica has been satisfactory, a representative of the PANI [Patronata Nacional de la Infancia] argued.

The international organs recognized that they did a good job in Costa Rica. However, there are still many things to work on. In the last couple of years Costa Rica has gone through several positive developments and initiatives which help the fight against the commercial sexual exploitation of children, such as participating in the above mentioned international agreements and conferences. Another important step forward in Costa Rica in the protection of children’s rights has been the development of a child protection system, in which all the different organizations that work with children are included. Examples of institutions and organizations that are part of the child protection system, according to a representative of a NGO, are:

• Law:

-Fiscal (the lawyers, prosecutors)
-OIJ (the investigators, detectives)

• State institutions/ministries

-Ministry of Security: In the last government there was a strong policy against commercial sexual exploitation, because the vice minister was a woman.
-PANI [Patronata Nacional de la Infancia]: national institution for the protection of children in a prevention/attention way.
-Ministry of Education: There is no separate system in Costa Rica for children with difficulties in behavior or learning.
-Ministry of Health
-IMAS [Instituto Mixto de Ayuda Social]: national institute to prevent poverty. However they do not do this, although they should in theory.
-INA [Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje]: school where children can go to after high school.

-University of Costa Rica
• NGO’s

- OIT/IPEC
- Rainforest Alliance

Another important development was the foundation of a national commission against the commercial sexual exploitation of children, named the CONACOES. A whole range of governmental institutions and NGO’s which in one way or another are dealing with this problem are part of this commission.

The PANI is the ‘head’ of this commission. Furthermore there is a special unit within the OIJ charged with the investigation of cases concerning commercial sexual exploitation. The last important development I would like to mention, and which is going on at this very moment, is the creation of a national plan against the commercial sexual exploitation, a representative of the PANI pointed out. This plan is already very advanced and the commission of children’s rights says that this plan is satisfactory. However, there is some skepticism among the participant researchers as this is the second plan the country makes. A representative of the PANI argued that in this plan they have to reinforce the operationality, which means that it has to become clear which role belongs to each subject.

They have to establish which competence and which responsibility each one of the members of this commission [CONACOES] has. So in the future they can see what can be demanded from them. A representative of the PANI said that it will have economic resources, because the population is now more aware of the importance of providing economic resources to these programs, especially those against the commercial sexual exploitation. The plan will define the functions, responsibilities and competences for different institutions within the government. Therefore, each institution has to define their own economic resources for this program. As a country they will provide these economic resources to develop this plan. The PANI will support any action that these institutions do in order to provide them the resources they need.

It sounds like Costa Rica is doing a pretty good job in the fight against the commercial sexual exploitation of children in general. Many of the participant researchers agree that especially compared to its neighboring countries Costa Rica is indeed doing a good job. Costa Rica is also seen by many countries in the region as a best practice example, several of the participant researchers point out. A representative of a NGO for example argued: “Costa Rica is a kind of storage of good lessons to the other countries in order to fight the commercial sexual exploitation” (February 2007).

The most important achievement that the participant researchers agreed upon is that Costa Rica has named the problem and that commercial sexual exploitation of children is now recognized as a problem which has to be fought against. The creation of a law against the commercial sexual exploitation has played a leading role in this achievement, argued a representative of a NGO. It is only ten years ago that Costa Rica did not know that the problem of commercial sexual exploitation existed. It existed, but it was not recognized as a problem. As argued before, in 1998 the president of Costa Rica was still denying the problem. So, in this respect Costa Rica has achieved the first important step in the fight against commercial sexual exploitation of children: the recognition of the problem.

All the participant researchers, except for one representative of a tourism company, agreed that Costa Rica is moving forward, although very slowly. As a representative of a NGO argued: “I think we are in an advanced stage. I could say we have reached in some subjects tops and in others we cannot go further, but still a lot needs to be done” (January 2007). One should not expect a problem like this, coming from a cultural tradition of many years, to change in such a short time, several representatives of NGO’s pointed out. Costa Rica has only been working on this issue for about ten years now, which is a very short time. All the participant researchers agreed it takes a lot of time to see a real change. It needs time to change the minds of the people, the ideologies and the power structures and this will not be achieved in just one generation, a representative of a NGO argued. She referred in this regard to the United States which has a much longer history of the women’s movement.

One participant researcher who did not agree with the others that Costa Rica is moving forward, is an expatriate and owner of a hotel in Jaco. He argued Costa Rica is going backwards in its general development, including the commercial sexual exploitation, increasing crime, and the running steps backwards of the tourism. However, he was very positive about one issue in Costa Rica and that is the freedom of the press. According to this tourism company representative the press is not afraid to show the problems to the public. This was even the case when a couple of ex-presidents got arrested on charges of corruption. Although there have been many positive developments and initiatives in Costa Rica and in an international context and national context, one should not be satisfied with that. One should always try to improve, look at the challenges and try to overcome them.

A representative of the University of Costa Rica also pointed out this necessity. With regard to the earlier mentioned child protection system almost all participant researchers are not satisfied with the way the system works. According to a representative of a NGO, the system does not work at all, because it is not coordinated. It is not a system, she argued. To be a system, it should flow, but it does not flow and everybody works separately. The whole system should work for one victim, but this does not happen: “When there is a problem the reaction is: oh, that’s not me, this is their responsibility” (January 2007). There also used to be a ‘Unidad de Delitos Sexuales y Violencia’ [a unit against sexual and violence crimes] within the security ministry who where supposed to work together with the OIJ. However, due to the constant problems, especially in its coordination with the OIJ, this unit has been closed.

Another important inhibiting factor in the fight against commercial sexual exploitation is the lack of will within the government for social issues and thus also the issue of commercial sexual exploitation. Several representatives of NGO’s commented on the issue of being political correct. They argued that although some government officials are saying that they are against commercial sexual exploitation, they say this because it is the right thing to say to the rest of the world. Two examples given by representatives of NGO’s who work with victims demonstrate this very clearly. The representative of one NGO was telling about the day the new law against the commercial sexual exploitation was approved in 1999. She called the girls that were in the shelter at the moment to watch this news on the television. While they were watching the speeches of some of the government officials several of the girls suddenly said: “hey, I was with this guy, hey, and also with that guy”.

The same government officials, who were talking on the news about the necessity and the importance of this law against commercial sexual exploitation, were clients of some of the girls in the shelter. I do realize that this has been eight years ago. However, another example given by a representative of another NGO demonstrates that this problem still exists. A girl told her that one of the lawyers of PANI, the government institution for the protection of children, had been her client. This is one of the reasons that the government is not that concerned with social issues, as it results from the embedded power of men who are often behind this exploitation.

A representative of the University of Costa Rica argued that government officials on the highest levels within the government probably do not care at all about the social issues. He argues that the changes within the government regarding social issues have to come from government officials in the more low levels of the government. They are the ones who care about these kinds of things. At the moment the Costa Rican government is more concerned with the CAFTA-agreement and their relations with other countries in the international community.

Another difficulty in the fight against this issue is the CONACOES [commission] itself. Most participant researchers agreed that at the moment this commission is not working how it should work. They mentioned several reasons for that:

• They are not producing results. It is only talking, not acting. At the moment they just gather the existing initiatives from all the members, put them together in a report and present them as the results of CONACOES.

• There are difficulties with the leadership of the CONACOES, which is the PANI, because of its place in the governmental hierarchy. This results in frictions between the PANI and other members of the CONACOES, as some of them believe the PANI is not doing a good job being a leader. Every time when the CONACOES accomplished something, the PANI sticks out as the only institution, so the other members feel like they are not being acknowledged in the participation.

• The members of the CONACOES feel frustrated because all of them do not have any power to make any decision, which results in the fact that no actions are taken at all. A good example of the problems that exist within this commission is the dispute between the ICT [the Costa Rican Tourism Institute] and the CONACOES. The CONACOES was planning to do a campaign and asked the ICT for money to finance this campaign. The ICT did want to finance this campaign, only if their logo was going to be used in this campaign. However, the PANI said no. Now the ICT decided to do their own campaign.

With the research participants I also discussed their ideas concerning the issue of responsibility for ‘solving’, or better said, fighting the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Most of them agreed it is a responsibility of the whole society, although some, some representatives of NGO’s, assigned a bigger responsibility to the government and others, some other representatives of NGO’s, pointed out that NGO’s have always and will always be the ones who put social issues like this on the public agenda and lobby for inclusion of these issues in the government policies.

“NGO’s are the engine of moving things forward” (March 2007), a representative of the University of Costa Rica argued. One representative of a NGO argued that the government has a big structural responsibility. The government has to make a plan or model of development that is more equal and fair and that does not impoverish so many people, a plan that is more socially oriented. Often the World Bank or other international institutions put pressures on the national governments to take ‘unfair’ decisions in order to receive help, she argues. According to a representative of the University of Costa Rica NGO’s are always fighting for more resources for these social issues, as the government’s priority is with the trade, and international relations and not with social issues.

One representative of a NGO commented on the responsibility of the ‘generating market’ countries, in the case of Costa Rica mainly the United States: “If you don’t exploit children in your country, please don’t do it in other countries!” (January 2007). According to her it should be a matter of moral responsibility, and not a matter of laws. Also the Code of Conduct workshop participants discussed their responsibility as ‘tourism’ employees with regard to the commercial sexual exploitation of children and wrote their ideas on a big sheet of paper. The following ideas about their responsibility came out of the workshops:

• We have to notify the management about the case.
• In an urgent case, call the Public Prosecutor’s office of sexual criminal offences, or else: PANI and the ministry of public security.
• Report if we know any person who works as an intermediary.
• As a tourism company, to have a good image as much national as international, supporting the freedom and respecting the boys, girls and adolescents.
• In this hotel we don’t give this type of information and we do not have the necessity to risk our freedom for dishonest business and illegal persons.
• Which type of entertainment does the tourist want: if he/she asks us for girls, we do not have that type of information, but there are places, night clubs, brothels, which are permitted by the law.
• I don’t know.
• I will ask him his name is and his telephone number in order to call 911 or the PANI after that.
• I will inform him where to go but it is not such a place and I contact the police in order that they can catch him.
• Inform them that it is illegal and do not recommend them this type of attitude.
• Take data.
• Definitely communicate it to the authorities.
• Inform the guest that that activity is a criminal offence.
• Report.
• Talk about the values of the hotel.
• Put clearly our moral and social responsibility.
• Talk about the legal framework in our country.
• We do not have knowledge at all about these places.
• Pass the information to the chef immediately so he knows about the situation.
• Tell him that the image of our country Costa Rica is not defined, in our country the child prostitution is prohibited and penalized.

From all the stories and information gathered in the interviews, some main problems can be discerned. These problems which influence every part of the fight against the commercial sexual exploitation of children severely:

• The transformation from a more openly and public problem of commercial sexual exploitation, in the sense of seeing the children on the streets to the emergence of ‘hidden’ organized crime networks, in the sense of the change from hotels and such to private apartments and such.

• Lack of sexual education / the cultural mind of the people, which makes it very difficult to implement any initiative in the prevention part, the sanction part and the attention part. A representative of a NGO asserted that “sexuality is a difficult issue to change”. It is really disturbing to see that according to the OIT/IPEC 62% of the population in Costa Rica thinks it is the responsibility of the underage person and his/her family to stop the commercial sexual exploitation. Only 8% thinks it is the responsibility of the client, 14% thinks it is the responsibility of the government and 16% does not know. This idea of more or less blaming the victims and the social tolerance in the society definitely inhibits the fight against the commercial sexual exploitation of children. It takes a long time to change these traditional minds of people, thoughts that always have been a part of the society. In that regard Costa Rica is only at the beginning of the fight, several participant researchers argue.

• Lack of resources, which is even worse when compared to the resources the organized crime networks possess. If you close one website, they will open five new websites in any location in the world, a representative of a NGO argued. It is almost impossible to compete with them.

• Some participant researchers argued it is not really a matter of lack of resources but more the allocation of the resources by the government, who is not prioritizing social issues. Nevertheless, people have more thrust in this new government (since 2006) than they had in the previous governments, also because this government is less conservative than the previous government. At the same time, the participant researchers commented on the fact that this government is only concerned with the CAFTA agreement at the moment. All the other issues are second, third and fourth, a representative of the University of Costa Rica argued. It has also been pointed out that not only Costa Rica, but all countries in the region are more concerned with the international relations they have, and the international trade agreements they are signing with regard to the liberalization they are striving for.

• Lack of cooperation, which is a problem in every structure of the society, making every process and initiative very slow and confusing;

• Slow bureaucratic system, which results in for example the almost impossibility to prosecute foreign exploiters;

• Costa Rica is not a third world country, so Costa Rica does not receive much help from international NGO’s and institutions, as they are using their resources for countries that are in a worse condition.

4.2.2.1 Prevention

The participant researchers have mentioned several positive actions and challenges within the prevention part of the fight against commercial sexual exploitation of children. The following positive actions can be discerned in the prevention:

• The success of the Code of Conduct Project within the tourism industry/the willingness of the tourism industry to participate in the Code of Conduct Project.

• The media in Costa Rica who are willing to broadcast free campaigns on television.

• The campaigns have been noticed by tourists as well as locals.

• A representative of a NGO showed me a commercial they broadcast on television, aimed at adolescents, in order to teach them to recognize possible dangerous and tricky situations through which they can be pulled into the commercial sexual exploitation. Thus, they do not only have campaigns aimed at possible exploiters, locals and foreign tourists, but also campaigns aimed at the adolescents themselves.

• The Code of Conduct workshop starts with a movie in which child victims of commercial sexual exploitation are being interviewed about their experiences. This movie turned out to be a very important tool in convincing the participants that these children are not to blame, and are not doing this from their own free will.

• The work by Paniamor done in the political incidence program has been mentioned as a best practice in the international commission for children’s rights. I was in the office when my colleagues María Teresa and Nidia found out about this and I still get a smile on my face remembering how happy they were.

• The dedication of Costa Rica to a sustainable tourism industry in general, including the existence of the CST [Certification for Sustainable Tourism]. Costa Rica is striving to keep the image of a sustainable destination, and also the tourism companies want to promote this image, several representatives of tourism companies argued. Sex tourism (commercial sexual exploitation and adult prostitution) and sustainability do not get along together. One of the requirements in receiving a CST is not allowing prostitution (both adult prostitution and commercial sexual exploitation of children) in the hotel. This is definitely a positive requirement, as earlier I have commented on the notion that where there is a thriving prostitution industry, there is also commercial sexual exploitation of children. Part of the sustainability is to respect and protect the people from the country one is visiting and this also means the protection of the children in that country, not only nature. Until a few years ago nobody thought about people being part of sustainable tourism, a representative of a NGO argued. They had to work on that, on making the people from the industry realize this. It is funny when you think about it, she argued: “first we protected the trees and then the people”.

• Several organizations, such as ACOPROT and OIT/IPEC are working on collaboration between countries, in order to exchange information and to encourage governments to take on their role within this fight. A representative of OIT/IPEC called this “institutional empowerment”.

• Until a short while ago there was no or few information about the issue of trafficking in Costa Rica. At the moment Costa Rica is working very hard on this issue and to learn more about it, which also will have a positive effect on the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

• The company Taxis Unidos/Fast Rent a Car is very devoted to the Code of Conduct project, which means that Paniamor was able to reach a very important possible intermediary.

The following challenges can be discerned in the prevention:

• Several representatives of NGO’s, tourism companies and the University of Costa Rica discuss the work of a specific NGO in Costa Rica, which does not exist anymore at the moment. This NGO Casa Alianza, which was fighting the commercial sexual exploitation of children by chasing the exploiters, is seen by several participant researchers as having influenced the development of the image of Costa Rica as a sex destination in a negative way. Most of them did not agree with the way this NGO was working, as Casa Alianza was telling everybody abroad about the problems in Costa Rica and how bad the situation in Costa Rica was.

They did this without saying anything about what was being done about it, thus more or less informing potential exploiters that Costa Rica was the place to be. This Casa Alianza was also the cause of a big scandal in Costa Rica in 2004, putting all the NGO’s and their work in a bad light. What happened was that the director of Casa Alianza was being accused of having sex with an 18 or 19 year old boy. A representative of the University of Costa Rica told me she was shocked and angry. This NGO disappeared from Costa Rica:

• To make the Code of Conduct Project sustainable by including it in a governmental institution. At the moment the Code of Conduct Project is a NGO initiative, and with a NGO it will never be sure if the project will always have enough resources. There is no agreement on which institution would be best. The ICT [the Costa Rican Tourism Institute] is willing to take this project from Paniamor, but a representative of ACOPROT [private non-profit association for tourism professionals] believes this is not the right government institution to embrace this project, because it gives off the sign that the commercial sexual exploitation of children is a problem of the tourism industry. The representative of ACOPROT believes one of the social institutions should take this project;

• To monitor and evaluate the Code of Conduct Project. At the moment it is not clear at all if the project is effective. There have been several signs that for example the current employees of a hotel which is part of the Code of Conduct project have no idea what the Code of Conduct project is, because the turn-over of the personnel is great in Costa Rica. In Costa Rica I did a quantitative research of the Code of Conduct Project in order to assess how well the tourism companies which are ‘member’ of the Code of Conduct project are doing with regard to the requirements of this Code, the five steps. Thus, I only researched the tourism companies which are already supporting the Code of Conduct project and are also listed as doing so. The results indicate that still a lot needs to be done to get the companies to participate more:

-32% of the participants of the Code of Conduct Project have actually signed the Code of Conduct.
-85% of the participants of the Code of Conduct Project have had one or more workshops.
-From 4% of the participants of the Code of Conduct Project it is known that they are using external symbols.
-From 0,4% of the participants of the Code of Conduct Project it is known that they have a clause in their contracts with suppliers.
-3% of the participants of the Code of Conduct Project have sent their annual report to Paniamor.

It should be clear that a good monitoring and evaluation system needs to be put in place. Several participant researchers have mentioned this as a weakness of the Code of Conduct Project at the moment. The representatives of Paniamor do realize this and argued Paniamor has started to work on the development of a monitoring and evaluation system in the period I was in Costa Rica:

• To find another approach with the Code of Conduct Project; to go to certain regions or towns and implement the project region by region. At the moment the efforts are spread all over the country. The new approach could be done with the help of the local tourism chambers.

• To improve the education system, both at the level of sexual education and at the level of offering opportunities to children who are excluded from the system. There is also still a gender difference within the education system which needs to be worked on, although it is much better than it has been before. A representative of a governmental institution told a story about what she had experiences when she was studying architecture. She had to do a big project and explained to the professor all the things that she had done. The reaction of the professor was: “This is perfect, who made that?”.

• To focus campaigns more on the local communities, not only on the tourism sector.

• To do research about boys involved in the commercial sexual exploitation.

• To find a solution for the change from hotels to private apartments. A representative of a NGO suggested to start working with real estate companies, as they are maybe able to inform these type of tourists.

• Airline companies say that they show in-flight videos to inform the tourists about this issue.

However, personally I have not seen any video in the airplane both when I came to Costa Rica and when I left Costa Rica, both my first visit and my second visit. Asking other people, participant researchers as well as tourists, they also pointed out that they had not seen any inflight video during their flight to Costa Rica.

4.2.2.2 Attention

The participant researchers have mentioned several positive actions and challenges within the attention part of the fight against commercial sexual exploitation of children. The following positive actions can be discerned within the attention:

• The existence of NGO’s for the attention of the victims.

• The development of a new government plan for the attention of the victims within PANI in cooperation with the University of Costa Rica. A representative of the University of Costa Rica was a little bit skeptical about it, as the PANI has made plans many times before. This representative argued that they are trying to convince the PANI about including their recommendations in this new plan. The University of Costa Rica is doing a lot of work and research in this issue and has a very good project running for already five years in a village in the southern part of Costa Rica. Their main approach is giving the families resources to live from. A representative of the University of Costa Rica believed this is the best solution. He pointed out that they have found out that most victims do not need psychological therapy or something like that. When you change the situation by giving them resources than the problem can be solved in the majority of the cases, he argued. This representative of the University of Costa Rica believes the PANI should work in the same way. They had very good results with this community, around 65/75 percent positive results with victims. According to the representative of the University of Costa Rica this is a big step forward for any kind of program or institution working with this issue. With other programs and institutions the rate of protection of victims was only around 2 or 3 percent. At the moment they are doing research in order to find out what exactly made it so effective and what should be done to get the other 35% protected.

• Costa Rica receives help from the Unites States. However, all help goes mainly to religious projects.

The following challenges can be discerned within the attention:

• Most of the participant researchers agreed that the attention part of the fight is the worse part in the fight against commercial sexual exploitation of children. The lack of services for victims of commercial sexual exploitation is a huge problem.

• Representatives of several NGO’s did not agree with the approach of the University of Costa Rica, in the sense of giving the family resources and the problem is solved. These representatives do not believe this can solve the whole problem and that it is also necessary to give counseling and therapy to the victim and its family.

• The following figure is a map presenting the locations of institutions and organizations working with children compared to the risk zones of commercial sexual exploitation.

Some interesting statistics concerning the victims of commercial sexual exploitation are given by the OIT/IPEC resulting from an earlier research they conducted in 2003. In the case of childhood sexual abuse only a few child victims where assisted by an institution. From the 100 children who where victim of childhood sexual abuse before the age of 12 in Costa Rica only 15% got assistance and 6% of the victims of sexual abuse over the age of 12 in Costa Rica got institutional assistance. With regard to the commercial sexual exploitation 49% of the victims in Costa Rica received institutional help at some point. This is something to worry about, because that means that the institutions where not able to get these victims out of the sexual exploitation situation, although they had been given institutional help. It is also worrying to see that 73% of the children and adolescents in Costa Rica said they had not been contacted by the school at the time they dropped out. What is also really shocking to see is that victims in Costa Rica, especially compared to the other countries that have been researched, have suffered a significantly high rate of abuse by the police:

- Detentions by the police: 60% of the persons interviewed
- Sexual abuse by the police (harassment or rape): 35% of the persons interviewed;

All non governmental initiatives in attention have to get the approval by the PANI. The PANI has to control these organizations or at least know that they exist. This is positive as it prevents people with bad intentions and abuse of a lot of money to start a shelter or something like that. However, at the moment the PANI is more blocking possible new initiatives mainly because of lack of resources.

• The organized crime networks make it more difficult to find victims. A representative of the government institution for the protection of children also pointed this out, as they have found only one girl in two months who is a victim of commercial sexual exploitation. Also a representative of a NGO was commenting on this arguing that the prosecutors’ office noticed a decline in reported cases in the last six/eight months. She thinks this is because the problem is more hidden and more organized. This happens with other things as well, she argued backing up her argument. “When you make the fight more stricter, it becomes more hidden”. This also happens with drugs, for example;

• There is no attention at all for boy victims of commercial sexual exploitation.

• At this moment there are no special attention programs for victims of commercial sexual exploitation. All children are put together in one shelter.

• The attention for the victims is concentrated in the Central Valley. The further from San José the less services for the victims it seems.

• Lack of cooperation between the PANI and non-governmental organizations working in attention. A good example of this is the lack of cooperation between CEPIA, a NGO working on prevention, sanction and attention, on the part of the PANI, which is frustrating. CEPIA is a NGO, founded two years ago by two Belgium girls in Huacas, Costa Rica, near Tamarindo. Before this organization, there were no services at all for children in the area. It would be great if these two could start working together more, according to CEPIA, because they both have different services which would fit together greatly. PANI has the shelter, so the beds and the food. CEPIA has the programs to keep the children from the street and to ‘rehabilitate’ them. However, because everything is moving so slow in Costa Rica this cooperation still has not been established to the frustration of CEPIA. A representative of CEPIA also argued that it is really frustrating that many public institutions do not have an email address. Some PANI organizations do not have an email address, such as the PANI in Liberia and Santa Cruz, the nearest places.

• A representative of the NGO Construyendo Esperanzas pointed out that it is almost impossible to compete with the money the girls earn in the commercial sexual exploitation.

• The lack of education opportunities for girls who have been in commercial sexual exploitation plays an important role. The girls feel to ashamed.

• The fact that still many people blame the underage girls for being involved in the commercial sexual exploitation inhibits the attempts of for example Construyendo Esperanzas to give attention to the girls by reuniting them with their families and community. All the participant researchers stressed the importance of the family in the attention of the victims and to involve the family. Construyendo Esperanzas told me of a situation with a girl, which only happened three months ago. This girl wanted to get out of the commercial sexual exploitation and Construyendo Esperanzas was helping her with this. However, it was not possible for this girl to go back to her community and family. She and Construyendo Esperanzas tried, but her family and the community was acting in a terrible way to this girl, putting the blame on her.

• Several participant researchers commented on the existence of religious NGO’s working with attention. These participant researchers do not believe this is the right approach to the problem, as it implicates that a woman or girl who wants to get out of the prostitution, but does not believe in God and does not want to pray, has nowhere to go. It would be better, these participant researchers argued, that these women and girls have a choice whether they want to have religious attention or another kind of attention. Right now there is a lack of these possibilities.

• A representative of the University of Costa Rica considered the way how the PANI operates as being the main cause why the attention part of the fight in Costa Rica is in such a bad shape and why the programs that are working with victims only have a 2 till 3 percent effectiveness. He argued that the PANI is not doing what it is supposed to do: “the responsibility of the PANI is first of all to keep an eye on all the institutions that have services for children and make sure that those services really get to them and to facilitate all the processes for children” (February 2007). However, the PANI has limited its work to giving a sort of sexual therapy and neglecting all the protection of rights. According to a representative of the University of Costa Rica the internal law of the PANI says that the main responsibility of the PANI is to keep an eye on the protection of children’s rights. That has to be their main concern and that is the main thing they neglect or forget.

• The problem with the NGO initiatives in the attention part is that these projects are not sustainable. They have to work more together with the PANI, a representative of the University of Costa Rica argued. Otherwise there is a danger, when there are no funds anymore for this project, because NGO’s can never be sure about their resources, the project disappears. Thus, the future of these kinds of projects is insecure without a government’s back up.

4.2.2.3 Sanction

The participant researchers have mentioned several positive actions and challenges within the sanction part of the fight against commercial sexual exploitation of children. The following positive actions can be discerned within the sanction:

• The most important positive development within the sanction part is the establishment of a law against the commercial sexual exploitation of children. This most important law in this issue is law No. 7899 against commercial sexual exploitation of boys, girls and adolescents. This law was enacted in Costa Rica in 1999 and is a criminal law. Jail sentences are between 8 and 16 years. The following criminal offences are covered by this law:

- Sexual relations (rewarded or not) with underage persons: 2 to 10 years
- Corruption (enabling, creating opportunities for abuse with minors): 4 to 10 years
- Proxenetismo (pimping, no family): 2 to 10 years
- Rufianería (pimping, family): 2 to 10 years
- Trafficking in persons: 3 to 10 years
- The making of, production and dispersion of pornography: 1 to 4 years

This year, around June 2007, Paniamor finally reached a very important stage in the fight against commercial sexual exploitation: after years of lobbying they finally managed to ‘push through’ a law against the possession of pornography, a milestone in history. This was a really difficult job to do, according to a representative of a NGO. When I was in Costa Rica this NGO was still working on that, getting very frustrated because of the lack of will and cooperation from the people who had to approve this law. Shockingly, some of these people argued that if you wanted to forbid the possession of pornography, you had to remove all the books regarding sexual education from the education system, because that could be considered pornography too.

• The existence of extraterritorial laws, including the Protect Act in the United States. A representative of a NGO explained that in the United States, when a United States citizen or a resident in the United States travels abroad and sexually exploits a person below 18 years old, this person will be exposed to punishment because of a criminal offence in the United States through the Protect Act. Also many other countries have extraterritorial legislation, with which a person can be prosecuted in her or his own country for committing a sexual criminal offence against children in another country.

• The growing awareness of the importance of the problem and of the importance to see the problem as a form of organized crime and to recognize it as such, just like drugs trafficking, within the law enforcement personnel thanks to several trainings from NGO’s.

The following challenges can be discerned within the sanction:

• Some interesting statistics concerning the victims of commercial sexual exploitation are given by the OIT/IPEC resulting from an earlier research they conducted in 2003. In the case of childhood sexual abuse only in a very few cases the institutions that helped the children for the abuse reported the case. Compared to the other countries OIT/IPEC researched Costa Rica is the most obvious example. In only 6% of the cases the abuser was reported. This number demonstrates the normality of impunity in cases of childhood sexual abuse. As said before in this report on the community perception of the problem 59% of the people in Costa Rica knows or has seen a person under age 18 in commercial sexual exploitation in their community. Knowing this, it is now interesting to see what their reaction is to this knowledge. These results are even more shocking when one looks at the statistics saying that only 4% of the people who know or have seen children and adolescents being sexually exploited has actually filed a complaint.

• As a reaction to the strengthening of the laws and the law enforcement in this issue in the last couple of years, the manifestations of the commercial sexual exploitation of children have changed. In the past one could see the children in the streets, which is not the case anymore.

• The organized crime networks play a much more important role nowadays in the commercial sexual exploitation of children, and they have found ways to ‘escape’ the law. The change from for example hotels to private apartments as a location for the commercial sexual exploitation of children has resulted in more difficulties in the law enforcement. The exploiters and the children are more difficult to find and the police is meeting constraints in the possibilities to search private properties, which is not possible without any evidence.

• Most people working in the sanction part are men. Laws are made by men and the law enforcement is done by men, a representative of a NGO argued. This is important because of the deeply embedded power in the structure of being man. This does not even have to be conscious. Just by being a man you possess a lot of power properties.

• Police does not have enough resources to catch exploiters, which results in a lack of law enforcement. A representative of a tourism company provided me with an example of such a situation in Jaco. According to him the police are visiting his company often to ask him for gas for their cars, because they do not have the money themselves. He also commented upon the fact that these policemen are very low educated, as most of them cannot write or read well. He experienced this himself when he was filing a complaint. A representative of a NGO also commented on the lack of resources with the police. In Tamarindo, she experienced this herself, as she mentioned that if the police has four cars, one of them will be broken, one of them will be in the garage, one of them does not have gas, and the last one is working. She has experienced several times that in a crisis situation the police could not intervene, because they had no gas and they called her to ‘rescue’ the child. However, she argued that lately the situation has become better, as the government has allocated more policemen now to this area.

• The fact that the salaries of policemen are very low, makes them extra vulnerable for Corruption.

• Investigation unit does not have enough resources to investigate crimes in the criminal networks as they do not have the resources needed to go undercover: camera, fancy clothes, marked dollars, fancy car, etc.

• It is difficult to do something legally about the websites promoting Costa Rica as a sex destination. A representative of a NGO argued that she has heard that the internet pages promoting Costa Rica as a sex destination are increasing.

• People are not reporting cases, because they have no thrust in the judicial system or because of the social tolerance issue. Often when they report a case, little happens. Several representatives of NGO’s pointed out that during the Code of Conduct workshops they stress all the time that the police is doing such a good job and that people really should report etc., but that they realize that this is not the truth.

• Due to the stricter fight in Costa Rica against commercial sexual exploitation, it is possible that the problem will move to other countries in the region, where the law is not that strict yet, several representatives of NGO’s argued. One representative of a NGO referred to what happened in Asia. When they started campaigns and strengthened their laws, the problem also moved to other countries, for example to Costa Rica. At the moment she thinks that in the near future probably Nicaragua is at risk.

• The existence of corruption. Several representatives of NGO’s and tourism companies pointed out this problem within Costa Rica. However, it is important to mention the majority of these people do not see corruption only on the level of law enforcement. They consider corruption to be a phenomenon happening at all levels of the network of commercial sexual exploitation. A representative of a NGO argued corruption is the police who is turning an eye to the other side, the hotels who permit these crimes in their buildings, the exploiter who is exploiting the child, the taxi driver who is bringing the client to the child, and the tour operator who is promoting this in his packages.

• A representative of a tourism company argued that for many small tourism companies it is not clear how they have to report and to whom. He has heard of situations where someone wanted to file a complaint and this person was being send from one organization to the other, as each organization said: no, we are not the right organization, you have to call that organization etc. etc. He also mentioned the possibility of someone calling the police in case of a crisis situation and that nobody is there, because they are all having lunch.

• The difficulties in enforcing the extraterritorial legislation. There are all kinds of problems to be found with this legislation, although there also have been examples of good cases. A representative of a NGO pointed out that she does not know any example of the application of the extraterritorial law from Europe, only from the United States. The main problem with this legislation is finding the evidence and the slowness of the system. One representative of a NGO commented on another problem with the extraterritorial legislation. According to her, there is a lack of campaigns and information in the sending countries, which results in a lack of knowledge with tourists. She argued the sending countries need to do a campaign, informing the tourists that it is a crime in their country but in other countries too. I think that a research by Terres des Hommes Netherlands, published in September 2007 also indicates the ‘weakness’ of the extraterritorial legislation. This research investigated the application of the extraterritorial law in the Netherlands with regard to commercial sexual exploitation and found out that since 2002 only two cases have been prosecuted. A representative of a NGO argued that not only the existence of extraterritorial laws should be communicated in the sending countries. The extraterritorial legislation still has to do with the reactive part, she argued, while there should also be attention for the sexual education of these tourists.

• The difficulty in prosecuting exploiters. Many of the victims do not want to testify, because they are afraid or because they do not see themselves as victims, arguing that they did it from their own free will. It is also possible that the exploiter pays the family 2000 dollars to keep quiet, a huge amount of money for a probably poor family. A representative of a NGO argued that “the queen of the evidence should not be what the child says” (January 2007). Not only children receive threats but NGO’s as well. A representative of a NGO told me that the director and one of her colleagues who where working on a case once, received a threat letter.

• It is necessary to work more with the retired people who live in Costa Rica, the expatriates, a representative of a NGO argued.

• The work of certain devoted NGO’s sometimes is inhibiting the investigation of commercial sexual exploitation cases. According to a representative of a NGO it is possible that a very fanatical NGO is doing their own investigation and thus endangering the real investigation. They often only think about the rights of the children and not about the rights of the exploiters, which can result in the release of the exploiters, because mistakes have been made in the investigation process, because rules have not been followed. This representative of a NGO believes a NGO should not be working on investigations.