Marianne Merten
“Let’s talk about sex”, goes the popular song. But organisers of an international sex tourism conference found the chambers of Parliament are not the place for such frankness.
Instead, about 100 delegates – ranging from a matron to an activist, with a smattering of men – relocated to a corner of historic Cape Town Castle.
The aim of the Sex Tourism: Myth or Reality conference was to agree on effective public- and private-sector campaigns against the sexual exploitation of children by foreign tourists or South Africans.
Successful anti-child sex tourism awareness programmes for taxi drivers, hotel reception and security staff and tour guides are already entrenched in many countries.
Several airlines show on-board videos against sex tourism, even on flights to South Africa.
After the parliamentary venue was withdrawn last week, key Cabinet ministers responsible for welfare, tourism, justice and defence cancelled at the 11th hour, citing double-booking or inter-ministerial pressure.
A handful of government representatives and a single child protection unit policeman attended, but just to listen.
But it was not an occasion members of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) or Errol Naidoo of His People church were prepared to skip. The party and church have been at the forefront of anti-prostitution demonstrations across Cape Town for months after the possibility of red-light districts and gay-friendly tourism promotion was raised.
The ACDP unsuccessfully tabled a motion against marketing the city with any reference to sexual preferences at council in late May, while protesters picketed outside with posters reading “Cape Town belongs to God” and “Don’t let sex tourism rape the Cape”.
The demonstrations targeted Cape Town Tourism manager Sheryl Ozinsky, regardless of her insistence that the Mother City wants nothing to do with child sex tourism.
Tempers flared over her recognition, shared by many others, that sex work is a reality and visitors should be informed about safe sex services, rather than gleaning information from newspaper classified sections.
That view was perhaps misguided, Ozinsky admits, but one cannot ignore “the extremely high levels of prostitution across South Africa fuelled by deepening poverty, collapsing social services and lack of employment”.
Recommendations of last year’s Western Cape Tourism White Paper on how to root out child sex tourism, including a code of conduct, have yet to be implemented.
“Cape Town will never become another Bangkok or Manila, but only if we do not turn a blind eye to what is happening under our noses,” Ozinsky told the conference.
Sex is happening in the city. And it involves some of the almost 760 000 foreign tourists and 2,3-million South Africans who visit Cape Town every year to spend about R18-billion.
The question is not “why do tourists demand sex, but why are women and children supplying their bodies?” says to self-proclaimed tourism sceptic Leonard Gentle, a researcher at the International Labour Resource and Information Group.
Tourism under the current “economic fundamentalism” is seen a quick-fix growth strategy to redress social inadequacies while spending public money on, for example, large-scale housing development remains limited because of budget deficit fears.
“If we encourage entrepreneurs to sell products, it’s an easy leap to sell bodies as a tourism product,” Gentle says. “In South Africa we come equipped with the mentality we are looking for rich German and British tourists we can fleece.”
Gentle’s critical voice stood out among the overall finding that tourism was not to blame, although it did provide opportunities for sex tourism.
Tour operator Alison Masters insists ethics are possible. Earlier this year an overseas tour operator requested she provide a group of 10 male cruise ship passengers with “some young fun”. She refused, but organised a night on the town without sex and had the group’s bus followed to make sure they stuck to the rules.
Today she smiles: the men enjoyed themselves and the tour operator is still doing business with her.