Irish tourists buy into the sex trade overseas

It is all too chillingly telling that bars in Olongapo in the northern Philippines are the haunts of anyone who seeks the sexual services of children. We didn't encounter huge numbers of Europeans that summer, but the majority of those we did were middle-aged men who spoke freely amongst one another about the best places to go and what you could get where.

Chilling truth as Irish tourists buy into the sex trade overseas

The O Searcaigh controversy raises questions about exploitation for us, says Diane Duggan

Fairytale of Kathmandu has yet to be aired on RTE. Perhaps when it is shown, the public can make up their own minds as to whether or not there is something suspect about poet Cathal O Searcaigh's encounters with younger men in Nepal. The journalistic jury is still out on whether he is a victim or a villain.


When the controversy surrounding the documentary first emerged some weeks ago, it raised the question as to how many Irish people felt disturbed and uncomfortable by it. Not because it appalled people for its connotations of abuse, but because many Irish people felt a little unnerved as to how it resembled activities they have engaged in themselves overseas.

Sex tourism is one of the world's booming trades, and children form a huge part of this industry in developing countries to which thousands of Irish people travel to every year. At a time when there is an outcry in relation to children's rights in Ireland, and a referendum in the offing, our apparent lack of regard towards how Irish people are exploiting children abroad is astonishing.

Of course, there is acute concern as to what may have happened in Nepal, and regardless of whether the boys in question were above the age of consent, the disparity of power in these relationships raises numerous issues. Nonetheless, there are children throughout Asia and Latin America who are quite clearly below the age of 17 and are being subjected to sexual abuse and deprived of any childhood -- and some of this is at the hands of Irish citizens.

To quantify its extent is an impossible task, but a brief look at groups working with these children puts the estimate into millions worldwide. But to go to the countries and see the problem for yourself exposes the horrible reality better than any figures could.

SERVE is an Irish development initiative that sends volunteers to work in developing countries. Working with SERVE in the Philippines in 2003, I experienced first-hand the immensity of the problem. Millions of children live on the streets, many of whom have only their bodies from which to make a living. I saw a mother sell her 12-year-old daughter on a nightly basis, one of thousands of girls and boys whose innocence and childhood are short-lived.

I sat and chatted with these children who opened my eyes to a world no child should ever have to imagine. Filipinos are generally friendly and affectionate people. The girls would rub my arm and tell me they wanted skin the same colour as mine, say how they loved Westlife and that everything about the white world was better and beautiful.

The girls without pimps said the boys living on the streets -- and forced to work the same way -- helped protect them. Yet there was something in all their eyes saying they had seen and done things that nothing on the streets could protect them from, and they had no other options.

Some children are as young as four when they are sold into prostitution, where their innocence can be bought for less than €1. It is Western tourists who fuel this industry, and prostitution is the fourth largest source of GNP in the Philippines, where up to 100,000 children are involved.

It is all too chillingly telling that bars in Olongapo in the northern Philippines are the haunts of anyone who seeks the sexual services of children. We didn't encounter huge numbers of Europeans that summer, but the majority of those we did were middle-aged men who spoke freely amongst one another about the best places to go and what you could get where.

Such tales of human depravity have been well-documented by the media. It is easy for sex tourists to legitimise what they do. When they travel to Pattaya, or Olongapo or Phnom Penh, they are surrounded by others there for the same reason -- if it's provided so readily and appears to be cultural practice, it's OK. Studies profiling situational sex offenders prove this. Out of Ireland, away from home, its easier to make the mental leap needed to legitimise these heinous acts.

There is nothing culturally acceptable about child abuse. There is never a time when it can be rationalised. When an impressionable 11-year-old Filipina approaches an Irish tourist, she does so as a girl whose innocence has been taken and is all too aware that the promise of food and shelter and any hope of a future, lie in this man's wallet, for which she does as he wishes. She aspires to the same level of dignity as any Irish girl, her only fault is that she was born in the wrong country. -- independent.ie