Background
The commercial sexual exploitation of children represents a substantial global concern. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) 1.8 million children were forced into prostitution and pornography in the year 2000 [
1]. Other estimations add up to 10 million prostituted children worldwide [
2]. It is estimated that more than US$5 billion are obtained through child prostitution every year [
3]. Child sex tourism (CST), which is defined by the United Nations as “the exploitation of children for sexual purposes by people who travel locally or internationally to engage in sexual activities with children” (p.5) [
4], accounts for a part of these earnings. While South-East Asia, Central America and Brazil are designated as countries with a long history of CST, with emerging destinations in South America, South, North-West, and East Africa, India and Mongolia, CST ‘users’ mostly originate from developed countries including European and North American countries, as well as Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand [
5].
Furthermore, CST is linked to the field of child and human trafficking [
6,
7]. According to the United Nations human trafficking refers to the acquisition of people by force, fraud or deception for an improper purpose, for example forced labor or sexual exploitation [
8]. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) states that at least 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide annually, primarily for the purpose of sexual exploitation [
9]. A recent literature review on sex trafficking to the U.S. addresses its impact, causes, legal and economic consequences, and gives a brief description of the traffickers and victims [
10]. According to the authors, human sex trafficking is not just related to a set of other crimes, such as fraud, extortion, coercion, or rape, but is in fact “the fastest growing form of international and intranational commerce and crime” (p. 155). The examination of the extent of trafficking – and consequently also of further research questions – is hindered by definitional and political aspects, as well as the illicit and hidden nature of the phenomenon. Schauer and Wheaton [
10] emphasize both the necessity to research the trafficking of children as a special facet of human trafficking, as well as the serious lack of data concerning the “final consumers of sex trafficking” (p. 165). These information are needed to develop appropriate prevention strategies against commercial forms of sexual abuse in developed as well as in developing countries. Current prevention strategies against CST mainly address the education and sensitization of the general public and the training of tourism professionals [
11], as well as countries’ legislation concerning CST, e.g. in terms of an elimination of the requirement of double criminality, according to which the crime would have to be illegal in both the home country and the location of the conduct [
12]. According to the German Penal Code German citizens who commit sexual offences in another country may be legally charged for these offences, however, such an extraterritoriality component, allowing the prosecution of citizens for crimes committed outside of their home country, does not exist in every nation [
12,
13]. In 2003 the US government passed the PROTECT Act that made it illegal for US residents to travel to foreign countries with the intention to have sex with minors [
14]. Furthermore, the PROTECT Act included the request for the implementation of measures that lead to an early identification of possible abusers or of those who are at risk to become abusers when travelling to a foreign country [
14].
It was suggested that CST might be motivated by the impression of anonymity arising from being in a foreign country [
14] or prejudiced assumptions about cultural or “natural” differences in the sexual willingness of children in the respective destinations [
15]. In this context, George and Panko [
14] established a conceptual model of the “CST ecosystem” which states biological, psychological, and situational factors influencing the motivation for CST. They further distinguish between “elective” and “core sex tourists”, based on Klain’s [
16] proposal that some individuals on leisure or business trips make unplanned use of CST when an opportunity is provided to them (“elective sex tourists”), whereas others’ precise purpose of the trip is sexual contact with a child (“core sex tourists”; [
14]). Although much is known about the characteristics of the victims of CST, the systematic evaluation of the psychological and criminological features of CST perpetrators has been mostly neglected so far.
Previous research has identified various personality traits that can frequently be found in child sexual abusers and that increase the likelihood that someone will commit a sexual assault against children. It can be hypothesized that these characteristics are of relevance in CST perpetrators as well. Pedophilic sexual interests and antisocial behaviors have been described as the most important risk factors for child sexual abuse [
17,
18]. However, own experiences of sexual abuse [
19], hypersexuality [
20] (for a critical discussion of the construct of hypersexuality in the context of child sexual abuse see [
21]), and the use of child pornography [
22] are further significant risk factors for child sexual abuse.
The present study aims at investigating the prevalence of CST in a large German community sample, and comparing those who made use of CST with other child sexual abusers from the community sample who did not engage in CST regarding the selected characteristics and risk factors.
Discussion
In this study 1.5% (
n = 132) of German men who participated in the survey reported having at least once in their life engaged in a sexual contact with a child. This percentage is in line with previous findings [
36‐
38]. Thirty-six participants (0.4%) indicated CST activities in the past. In general, estimating the prevalence of men who have abused a child within community samples is difficult, because most data only include those who got into conflict with the legal system and thus do not capture undetected sexual assaults [
39]. For this reason, comparative information on child sex tourists is even rarer. Bernard [
40] found 51% out of 73 pedophilic activists (members of the Working Group of Pedophilia) to have travelled abroad for sexual purposes, but evidently, those figures are not suitable for generalization, as the sample probably consisted of men with particular sexual interests. Therefore, the results of this study might give a first orientation about the prevalence of CST use among German men that could be representative for a modern western country.
The manifestation of risk factors diverged in some respects between users of CST and other child sexual abusers. The core features standing out in the CST group were own experiences of sexual abuse, pedophilic sexual behaviors, and antisocial behaviors. Interestingly, the two groups exhibited no differences concerning pedophilic sexual interests and hypersexuality. This is important because previous research has shown that pedophilic sexual interests and sexual preoccupation (for a definition of the term see [
41]) are two of the most important risk factor for child sexual abuse [
17]. These findings suggest that a higher degree of antisocial behaviors might be a prerequisite for engaging in CST. It might be possible that travelling to another country to have sexual contact with children presents a considerable obstacle even for child sexual abusers and thus more antisocial tendencies are needed to overcome this hurdle. The same accounts for the higher rate of sexual behaviors with children in the CST group because antisociality is also associated with contact sexual offending. A study by Lee et al. [
42] demonstrated higher levels of antisociality in exclusive child molesters compared to exclusive child pornography consumers.
In terms of future prevention strategies it is important that - despite antisocial characteristics - CST users reported a higher perceived likelihood of another sexual assault in the future but also more often thoughts about seeking professional help. One possible interpretation could be that CST users perceived lower inhibition towards future sexual assaults against children due to more general and sexual self-regulation problems, which would also be in line with the higher rate of antisocial behaviors observed in this group. Furthermore, they might feel more distressed by the lack of these skills. However, it is also possible that CST users had thought more often about professional help because they had been convicted more often for their offenses or because they were already under mandated treatment. Nevertheless, this issue needs to be examined in more detail in future studies because it could be an important goal for prevention programs addressing men with a risk to use CST since they seem to be more willing to engage in treatment.
Own abusive experiences among child sexual abusers are well documented [
19,
36,
43,
44]. This characteristic seems to be specifically marked in users of CST. Of course most victims of child sexual abuse do not become sexual offenders, and other studies failed to find a connection between child sexual abuse and victimization [
45]. This aspect therefore needs to be treated with caution.
The regression analysis confirmed the influence of own experiences of sexual abuse, child prostitution use, and previous conviction for a violent offense as predictors of CST. Although the present data reflect the importance of the mentioned factors, some variance still remaining unexplained signifies that other relevant risk factors need to be detected that lead men to use CST. Moreover, additional information about the circumstances in which CST users take advantage of child prostitution apart from CST should be collected.
This study has several limitations. First of all, the groups in the focus of statistical analysis were rather small, which is why the degree to which these results can be generalized to the population is restricted. Results of regression analysis might also be affected by the sample size. But as the use of CST is probably and hopefully a relatively rare phenomenon and the examined sample is large, the new insight still is remarkable. Further, the information gathered only draws upon self-report data. While self-report is not necessarily reliable, especially not when it concerns criminal acts, there is hardly an alternative to anonymously assess such confidential data in a community sample. CST as well as own experiences of sexual abuse were also only assessed using one dichotomous item each, whereby the various forms of sexual violence are not taken into account. However, given the breadth of subject matter covered in the survey, such level of detail was not possible. Due to item wording, it cannot be ruled out that some participants travelled to another country for CST purposes without putting this into action. It is also possible that some of those having sexually abused a child either refused to participate, particularly after being informed about the study purpose, or withdrew their consent after completing the survey, whereby results might be biased. Furthermore, social desirability might play a role when answering the questions, given that child sexual abuse and pedophilia are associated with a strong stigma in our society [
46]. With regard to both antisociality and hypersexuality, it needs to be considered that behaviors only partially serve as indicators.
Further research should explore CST users in a more detailed manner to foster the knowledge about their character and life circumstances. Subsequent studies should focus more concretely on specific aspects of CST (destinations, strategies to approach children, kinds of sexual contact) and on psychological factors as well (e.g., cognitive distortions, self-regulation) and the sexual offenses they committed in their home country. Comprising different sources of information in addition to self-report data might be useful.
Acknowledgements
Not applicable.