10% of the Spanish know cases of child sex tourism

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One out of ten Spanish citizens knows or has heard someone of his surroundings say that he has had sex relations with children during a trip to developing countries, according to the report "Sexual exploitation of children during travels," unveiled Wednesday by Unicef.

Unicef-Spain's Children Right's responsible, Gabriel González Bueno, criticized the "permissiveness" of part of the Spanish society and voiced the hope that the next reform of the Criminal Code will improve the tools to fight these cases.

He also emphasized that in the current Criminal Code sexual abuse is "not explicitly penalized", as it only refers to "what favours or facilitates sexual exploitation of children." He demanded a reform of the Criminal Code to clearly penalize "those who go to bed with children in exchange for money."

As he added, at the time being, there is no information about Spanish people arrested although the Spanish legislation contemplates "extraterritoriality" to judge cases of sexual abuse or prostitution. "No cases are known to have been reported until now, which demonstrates something's going wrong", emphasized González Bueno.

The profile of this kind of people, according to Unicef, is not that of a pederast, but of an "occasional sexual abuser," more exactly a man aged between 40 and 60 who is in search of adult prostitution and ends up having sex with a child. The main sex tourism destinations are the Caribbean Islands and Central America, Unicef said.

To face this situation, the organization started up a campaign addressing hotels and travel agencies so that they stimulate the use of good practice codes to avoid clients' making use of child prostitution.

Up to now, Eroski Viajes, Air Europa, Sol Meliá and Hoteles Barcelò adhered to it.