Costa Rica's Special Prosecutor for Sexual Crimes, whose staff recently expanded from two to eight, didn't even have a computer with Internet access when it began battling pedophiles. Sex tourists do not have to slink around dark foreign streets looking for prostitutes or struggle with foreign languages to ask taxi drivers where to find sex. In the comfort of their Northern American homes, they can go to websites offering detailed instructions on where to find sex partners abroad, as well as where to stay and what they can expect to pay. Nightclubs, massage parlors and escort services have their own websites. Several Internet bulletin boards provide opportunities for returned travelers to report on their sex adventures, alerting colleagues to new turf to be explored, along with warnings of crackdowns, such as that which occurred in 1999 in Cuba.
Informed consumers can steer clear of trouble spots.
Activists are turning the weapon around, however. Child activists are mounting websites with information about abuse and helping law-enforcement agencies network across borders to identify and capture abusers. The victims of sex tourism are children, their dreams still intact. Fleeing poverty and an inhospitable home life, she left her home near San Pedro Sula last year and joined two other young women to travel north to the United States. The three only made it to southern Mexico, where they were robbed and deported to Guatemala.