Tourists looking for underage sex in Acapulco
Underage sex tourism thrives in Acapulco
ACAPULCO, Mexico - It's early in the evening and they're already on the streets looking for customers.
They are all very young, some still in their teens. One teenage girl wearing a tight, revealing, deep pink dress walks by while prying eyes follow her every move. At La Noria Street in downtown Acapulco, this is part of daily life. It's supposed to be illegal, but it's not hard to find underage girls offering sex for money here.
This is Acapulco's dark secret and the reason why the Mexican beach resort has gained a sad notoriety with tourists seeking children for sex.
Rosario Santos, who runs a shelter for street boys and girls called New Hope, says that customers are "mostly foreigners" coming to Acapulco on cruises or by plane.
"We have rescued children as young as 10," says the 52-year-old who has made protecting children her mission in life.
One of the children she rescued is Irene Lopez. The 20-year-old says she was only 16 when she got caught in the trap of prostitution after running away from an abusive home. "We would do things with them after making a connection," she says, sometimes in broad daylight too, often under the influence of drugs. To "make a connection" in the parlance of the street here means to pick up a customer for sex.
Lopez says her customers were all tourists, mostly from the United States. She would get 500 pesos, or about $42, per customer, but says that in some instances she was so high on drugs that she doesn't know what she was paid. "My mind was blank," she says.
It is an open secret that the main square in downtown Acapulco was the place to go for pedophiles.
Customers would wait at the square to make "a connection" with children providing sex for money, children's rights activists say. The square is sometimes known as "La Pasarela" which means "The Catwalk" in Spanish.
But some children's right activists like Rosa María Cruz Muller say things have improved dramatically in the last few years.
She and others have pressured officials to increase police presence at The Catwalk, while helping as many children as possible get off the streets.
Comments
Hotels and guesthouses have means to tackle this crime by clearly speaking up against it, bystating a child protection policy, by not allowing exploitation of children on the premisis, by raising awareness amongst their suppliers and service providers like taxi or tour guides. And by reporting any suspicion of sexual exploitation to local authorities and/or to police in their home country.
Child Sex Tourism can be stopped - and the Child Protection Code for Travel and Tourism (http://thecode.org) is a great tool. http://www.unwto.org/protect_children
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