Sex Tourism

 

Weekends are busy on Fields Avenue in Balibago. Young women greet meandering men and invite them into the bars that line the street. 

Known as the "supermarket of sex", Angeles City's red light district has fast become a top destination for sex tourism.

Male travellers from Asia, Australia, the US, Europe and the Middle East constitute the bulk of the arrivals at Clark Airport, a former US military airbase. 

From there, many flock to the bars and clubs of Fields Avenue - and to the impoverished young women who work there.

Acquiring their company for the night is straightforward. For a small fee, the men obtain what is known as an "early work release" that permits them to take the woman of their choice back to their hotel.

It is a trade that thrives in the Philippines, where there are an estimated half-a-million sex workers, almost a fifth of whom are minors.

According to a former US ambassador to the Philippines, 40 percent of all visitors to the Philippines are sex tourists. 

Although illegal in the predominantly Catholic country, an estimated $400m is spent on prostitution there each year.

http://www.aljazeera.com