I. Context and significance

The conflation of sex tourism with trafficking occurs against a backdrop of increasing global attention to both phenomena. Sex tourism – the practice of travelling to engage in sexual activities, often with individuals in economically disadvantaged positions – has become a significant component of the tourism industry in many countries of the Global South.Footnote ⁸ Meanwhile, human trafficking has emerged as a priority issue in international human rights law, with states increasingly pressured to adopt legislative and policy measures to combat it.Footnote ⁹

The relationship between these phenomena is complex. While trafficking can certainly occur within the context of sex tourism, not all instances of sex tourism involve trafficking as defined by the Palermo Protocol. This distinction is crucial, as it affects not only conceptual clarity but also the development of appropriate legal and policy responses. When treaty bodies uncritically conflate these phenomena, they risk promoting overly broad approaches that may not effectively address the specific harms associated with either practice.

Moreover, this conflation raises important questions about how we understand exploitation, vulnerability, and agency in postcolonial contexts. The Global North’s historical tendency to portray individuals from the Global South, particularly women, as lacking agency has long been critiqued by postcolonial and feminist scholars.Footnote ¹⁰ When treaty bodies characterize all sex tourism as trafficking, they risk reinforcing these problematic narratives, potentially undermining the very rights and dignity they seek to protect.Footnote ¹¹

II. Methodology and structure

This note conducts a textual analysis, as noted in Table 1 below, of concluding observations issued by key treaty bodies,Footnote ¹² specifically the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC),Footnote ¹³ the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW),Footnote ¹⁴ and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR),Footnote ¹⁵ to identify patterns in how these bodies characterize the relationship between trafficking and sex tourism. This analysis reveals a tendency to treat sex tourism as inherently a form of trafficking, often without qualification or nuance. Second, the note examines the definitional frameworks of trafficking and sex tourism, highlighting the distinctions between these phenomena while acknowledging their potential interconnections. This analysis draws on the Palermo Protocol’s definition of trafficking and engages with scholarly critiques of this definition’s limitations in capturing the full spectrum of exploitation. Third, the note incorporates insights from postcolonial feminist theory to interrogate the implications of conflating trafficking and sex tourism on the agency and autonomy of subaltern individuals. This theoretical framework helps illuminate how seemingly protective interventions can perpetuate harmful stereotypes and power dynamics. Finally, the note engages with empirical studies that document the complex realities of individuals involved in sex tourism, highlighting the diverse motivations, experiences, and choices that characterize this phenomenon. These empirical insights provide a necessary counterbalance to overly simplistic characterizations of sex tourism as inherently exploitative.

Table 1. Lists the concluding observations in which treaty bodies address sex tourism in the context of human trafficking.

III. The trafficking–sex tourism nexus

Although some treaty bodies have rightly recognized that, given the non-exhaustive definition of “exploitation” contained in Article 3 of the Palermo Protocol, a person may in some circumstances be trafficked for the purposes of sex tourism,Footnote ¹⁶ in far too many cases treaty bodies have uncritically, and, indeed, in an unqualified fashion, treated sex tourism per se as a form of trafficking. By way of example, the CRC, in its report on Argentina, asserted:

Meanwhile, CESCR, in respect of Madagascar, expressed the following:

Separately, the CEDAW has adopted a zero-tolerance approach to sex tourism, calling on ColombiaFootnote ¹⁹ and Kenya,Footnote ²⁰ respectively, to “implement measures aimed at combating sex tourism, including in cooperation with tourists’ countries of origin”.Footnote ²¹

Treaty bodies are not alone in their unequivocal characterization of sex tourism as a form of human trafficking, largely on account of the asymmetrical power dynamics that characterize the typical sex tourism scenario and the “othering” that arises in this context. Legal scholars, such as Jonathan Todres, for example, are especially critical of sex tourism, which he argues “draws from the pool of trafficked victims”.Footnote ²² He contends that sex tourism is problematic because it enables men from the Global North to exhibit towards women in the Global South sexual behaviour which they would dare not engage in in their home countries.Footnote ²³ These men often justify their behaviour by drawing on crude stereotypes of subaltern women as being subservient and exotic.Footnote ²⁴ This “racialized, spatial, gendered, and class-based othering”Footnote ²⁵ rationalizes abuse as part of the “other’s” culture, such that the “self is seen as altruistic, helping these young girls whose culture imposes their difficult circumstances”.Footnote ²⁶ Richards and Reid are similarly critical of the fact that the sex tourism industry allows for local men in the Global South to be constructed as hypersexualised “black male studs”,Footnote ²⁷ while local women are constructed as “hot brown or black women whose main role is to serve the visitor”.Footnote ²⁸

From a postcolonial feminist perspective, the argument that sex tourism may contribute to the othering and exploitation of subaltern women in particular is understandable. So too is the argument that in many sex tourism cases the individual’s personal, situational, or circumstantial vulnerability is intentionally used or otherwise taken advantage of, to recruit, transport, transfer, harbour, or receive that person for the purpose of exploiting him or her, such that the person believes that submitting to the will of the abuser is the only real or acceptable option available to him or her, and that belief is reasonable in light of the victim’s situation, which is inconsistent with Article 3 of the Palermo Protocol.Footnote ²⁹ However, I take issue with the uncritical and unequivocal characterization of all cases of sex tourism as human trafficking. From a purely conceptual perspective, while a person may, for example, be harboured by means of force, threat, or coercion and thereby exploited for sex by a visitor, this does not represent every case of human trafficking. In many cases of sex tourism, the “acts” of, inter alia, recruitment, transportation, and harbouring as well as the “means” of threat, force, or coercion are not present, thereby negating a finding of human trafficking. In this context, it is unsurprising that the International Organization for Migration has noted that “in no way is every case of sex tourism associated with human trafficking, but it is known that human trafficking exists within this industry”.Footnote ³⁰

That said, it is worth acknowledging that the interpretive uncertainty occasioned by the conflation between trafficking and sex tourism reflects a deeper limitation of the Palermo Protocol’s definition of trafficking itself. The Protocol’s tripartite framework of acts, means, and purpose, while representing near-global consensus (evidenced by the high number of state ratifications), struggles to fully capture the complex spectrum of exploitation that exists in the sex tourism industry. The definition’s focus on discrete acts rather than structural conditions of exploitation arguably creates artificial distinctions that may not reflect the wide array of lived experiences. For instance, while the Palermo Protocol requires specific “acts” like recruitment or harbouring, and coercive “means”, the reality of sex tourism often involves more fluid scenarios where exploitation occurs through subtle economic and social pressures rather than overt force or clearly identifiable criminal acts, though it is arguable that this might be captured by the amorphous phrase “abuse of a position of vulnerability”. This definitional rigidity might help explain why treaty bodies and other institutions sometimes default to overly broad interpretations that characterize all sex tourism as trafficking – it is an attempt to address forms of exploitation that do not fit neatly within the Protocol’s narrow framework. However, such expansive interpretations risk undermining both conceptual clarity and the Protocol’s utility as a targeted instrument against specific forms of exploitation. This underscores the need for more nuanced approaches that address exploitation in the sex tourism industry without either ignoring genuine situations of trafficking or unduly restraining the agency of subaltern women who benefit from sex tourism.

On the latter point, there are real dangers of unequivocally characterizing sex tourism as human trafficking. First, such an approach turns a blind eye to the fact that many subaltern women make the difficult, but considered, choice to work in the sex tourism industry. Ward-PelarFootnote ³¹ and Piscitelli’sFootnote ³² empirical work, for example, found that, in the Brazilian context, many women use the sex tourism industry as an opportunity to make decent money, and thereby improve their socioeconomic circumstances.

Relatedly, unequivocally characterizing sex tourism as human trafficking ignores the complexity of human sexuality and diminishes the sexual autonomy of subaltern people. In this regard, Sanchez Taylor has argued that subaltern women may act as girlfriends to foreign male tourists, not asking for payment for sexual services, and instead accepting gifts, in the hope that someday a marriage may ensue and with it, an exit visa.Footnote ³³ JeffreysFootnote ³⁴ and PhillipsFootnote ³⁵ also respectively argue that sex tourism may in some cases provide an avenue for subaltern men to demonstrate their manhood and in this context feel liberated from the pressure to maintain steady and traditional relationships and, indeed, employment.

In short, then, while there may be (and, indeed, often are) links between human trafficking and the sex tourism industry, particularly when vulnerability is abused, the unequivocal treatment of sex tourism as a form of human trafficking by treaty bodies is conceptually improper, robs many subaltern women of their autonomy, and risks eliding the complex choices that these women often make to ensure their economic independence. Meyers describes these complex choices that women in particular make as operating within the framework of “burdened agency”.Footnote ³⁶

Treaty bodies must subscribe to a new vision of the trafficking–sex tourism nexus that is grounded in the idea of burdened agency. “Burdened agency”, argues Meyer, is an explicit recognition that when faced with appalling circumstances, subaltern women often make complex decisions that reaffirm their agency, and which are supportive of their quest for a better life.Footnote ³⁷ This may mean that subaltern women, in the face of patriarchy, misogyny, and limited opportunities, may demonstrate resilience and resistance by selling their sexual services.Footnote ³⁸ This does not imply that they always have full agency in these circumstances, but rather, that their agency is “burdened”.

IV. Conclusion

This note has demonstrated how international human rights treaty bodies consistently conflate sex tourism with human trafficking despite the conceptual distinctions between these phenomena. While the Palermo Protocol establishes a clear tripartite definition requiring specific acts, means, and purpose to constitute trafficking, treaty bodies frequently characterize sex tourism as inherently trafficking without qualifying this assertion or engaging with definitional nuances. This conflation is not merely semantic but carries profound implications. Most significantly, it erases the agency of individuals, particularly women from the Global South, who make difficult but deliberate choices to participate in sex tourism economies. By treating all such participation as trafficking, treaty bodies risk perpetuating paternalistic narratives that deny the “burdened agency” exercised by subaltern individuals navigating structural constraints in the global political economy. Moreover, this conceptual imprecision reveals deeper limitations in how international law conceptualizes exploitation and vulnerability. The Palermo Protocol’s focus on discrete criminal acts rather than structural conditions creates artificial distinctions that inadequately capture the complex spectrum of lived experiences within sex tourism contexts. While exploitation certainly occurs within sex tourism, treating it as categorically equivalent to trafficking undermines both conceptual clarity and effective policy responses. Treaty bodies should adopt more nuanced approaches that recognize potential exploitation while respecting individual autonomy. This requires acknowledging that while trafficking can occur within sex tourism contexts, not all instances of sex tourism constitute trafficking. By developing frameworks that address harmful conditions without denying agency, treaty bodies can contribute to more effective and ethically sound responses to both trafficking and problematic forms of sex tourism. This nuanced approach would better serve the interests of those they aim to protect while advancing the conceptual precision necessary for meaningful human rights advocacy.