Global Envision correspondent Amanda Howe spoke with Maria Jaqueline Leite de Souza, the founder and general coordinator of CHAME, a Brazilian organization dedicated to reversing the trend of increased sex tourism in Brazil.

The problem of sexual exploitation of women and children in Brazil is especially acute. Brazil, after Thailand, has the highest number of children involved in prostitution and the highest rate of child prostitution in Latin America. Studies estimate that there are between 100,000 and 500,000 children involved in prostitution in Brazil.

Girls as young as nine are entering the sex trade in increasing numbers. In 2004, city prosecutors launched a campaign at Rio’s highly celebrated Carnival to discourage visitors to the city from engaging in sex with minors. Young people wore T-shirts saying "Sexual exploitation is a crime," and handed out pamphlets notifying tourists that having sex with a person under age 14 could land them in jail
for up to 10 years.

Leite works in Salvador da Bahia, a costal city not far from Brazil’s capital, Brazilia. She returned to Brazil in 1994 after working for five years in Europe with Brazilian women trafficked to Switzerland. According to Leite, sex tourism and human trafficking are two independent problems, although sex tourism is often a gateway to trafficking.

Leite traces the roots of sex tourism to the advent of leisure in post-industrial societies and the explosion of mass tourism with the rise of the middle class in the 1950s. The Asian sex tourism market became saturated in the 1970s and industry operators looked to Brazil and the Dominican Republic for expansion. The Brazilian government, during the same period, encouraged tourism because it is an economic development strategy that requires little infrastructure development.

Brazil has the highest rate of child prostitution in Latin America. Studies estimate that there are between 100,000 and 500,000 children involved in prostitution in Brazil.

"The system of Brazilian tourism schools is only about 10 years old," says Leite referring to vocational schools that train workers for jobs in the hospitality industry. "A lack of sophistication and experience lead many in the Brazilian tourism industry to fall back on stereotypical images of Brazil, including advertisements and postcards that feature the famous Brazilian bunda, a woman’s posterior clad only in a thin string bikini."

The economic and social consequences of such exploitation are dire says Leite. "Overtly sexual images of women used to attract tourists devalue women’s humanity, perpetuate racism, harm children, and encourage promiscuous behavior that often leads to increased rates of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases," says Leite.

There are laws to protect women and children from crimes of exploitation, but the problem is enforcement says Leite. "Prosecution of these crimes is lax. Also, crime related to sex tourism and human trafficking often goes unrecognized as such," says Leite. She sites as an example the story of a mother who was murdered upon her return to Brazil. She had been in Switzerland, testifying against her sister, who had lured her niece to work in her brothel by promising the girl a legitimate job. "This crime was related to trafficking, but the police treated it as a homicide."

As for solutions, Leite suggests an approach that focuses on rehabilitating sex trade victims, education and prevention programs, and lobbying countries like the United States to diminish the market for young women from countries like Brazil. The US Trafficking Victims Protection Act and Reauthorization Act increase both US enforcement authority and assistance for trafficking victims, and are a step in the right direction says Leite. She applauds US attempts to fight sex tourism by prosecuting US nationals who travel abroad to engage in commercial sex with young children.




Contributed by Amanda Howe, an attorney specializing in Comparative Intellecutal Property and Banking Law. She currently works as a Legislative Analyst for National Write Your Congressman in Dallas, Texas.

To read another Global Envision article about globalization and women, see The Poverty Impacts of Female Employment.