Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Abolishing Slavery and its Contemporary Forms

4. Sex tourism
109. The 1983 report of the Special Rapporteur on the suppression of the traffic in persons and
the exploitation of the prostitution of others characterized “sex tourism” as a phenomenon similar
to trafficking rather than just an exploitation of prostitution. “More conspicuous, and therefore eas-
ier to trace, is the other type of traffic which, instead of transporting the prostitute, temporarily
transports the client. This is the channel of the package tours (‘sex tours’), in which the services of
195
United States v. Sanga, 967 F.2d 1332 (9th Cir. 1992).
196
Common article 3 of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, United Nations Treaty Series, vol. 75, pp. 31, 85,
135, 287.
197
Linda Chavez, Systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-like practices during periods of armed conflict,
United Nations document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1996/26, p. 4.
198
Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, supra note 185, art. 147.
199
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the territory of the former Yugoslavia,
United Nations document E/CN.4/1996/63; Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Rwan-
da, United Nations document E/CN.4/1996/68; see, for example, Gay J. McDougall, Systematic rape, sexual slavery and
slavery-like practices during times of war, final report, United Nations document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1998/13 (pointing out
that detaining women in “rape camps or comfort stations [and] forced temporary ‘marriages’ to soldiers are both in fact
and law forms of slavery contrary to the international standards”); Rape and abuse of women in the areas of armed con-
flict in the former Yugoslavia: report of the Secretary-General, United Nations document A/51/557 (1996) (“strongly
condemn[ing] the abhorrent practice of rape and abuse of women and children in the area of armed conflict in the
former Yugoslavia and reaffirm[ing] that rape in the conduct of armed conflict constituted a war crime”). A report of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights on systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-like practices during armed con-
flicts states that in the case of Prosecutor v. Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovac, and Zoran Vukovic (IT-96-23-T & IT-
96-23/1-T, 22 Feb., 2001) the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) acknowledged that rape and sexual
enslavement are crimes against humanity. Although in this case the enslavement was for sexual purposes, the ICTY
found the men guilty of enslavement without using the terms “sexual enslavement” or “sexual slavery”, meaning that
enslavement for any purpose can constitute a crime against humanity. United Nations document E/CN.4/Sub.2/2001/
29.
200
Report of the World Conference on Human Rights, United Nations document A/CONF.157/24 (1993), part II,
para. 38.

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