Costa Rican Authorities Take Action to Stop Minor Sex Tourism

Costa Rica has been long fighting to remove the tag of minor sex tourism from its brand. Its new campaign “Unforgettable Costa Rica” works towards inspiring the minds of potential tourists with the unforgettable nature borne experiences that limit to its splendid beauty of natural landscape of the destination.

The website, a collaboration between the Costa Rican Tourism Ministry and the PANIAMOR Foundation, has been seeded throughout the internet in the past few months. Undercover officials with both organizations have promoted the website on various dating websites and forums, using fake accounts to entice would-be pedophiles into visiting the web page with promises of “the youngest girls.”

PANIAMOR, a children’s rights and advocacy group, stated that this activity was performed on a site-by-site basis, with posts and messages inviting individuals who expressed interest in sex tourism to come to Costa Rica.

“The goal is to inform as many people as possible that engaging in sexual relations with people under 18 is a crime in Costa Rica,” PANIAMOR’s Executive Director, Milena Grillo, told The Tico Times.

The page itself seems legitimate at first, with a bright pink splash screen and gold lettering promising an “Unforgettable” experience in a Costa Rican resort.

“If you’re looking for young girls in Costa Rica,” the site reads, “This is the place, and you can stay for free. Have a peek.”

Visitors are met with what appears to be a typical hotel or resort website, lavish screenshots, and captions like “Live a mind-blowing experience that only Costa Rica can provide.”

The bottom right even has an availability checker, where you can submit your check-in and check-out dates.

The navigation bar includes what you’d expect; accommodations, dining & nightlife, spa & wellness, reviews, even a page titled “meet the girls.” As soon as you navigate away from the main page however, the site logs your IP address and issues a “greeting” based on your location.

“Hi there in United States, greetings from Costa Rica,” the warning reads, it goes on to detail which laws one would violate in both Costa Rica and the United States for participating in sex tourism.

This feature, site administrators say, is one of the most troubling and informative. The site has received hits from over 100 different countries, data which PANIAMOR intends to use to profile sexual predators in its other online ventures.

“This is actually a very troubling statistic, as it shows that interest in sex with underage people spreads worldwide,” said Costa Rica’s Vice President Ana Helena Chacon.

Child prostitution has been a huge problem for Costa Rica, one that has proven difficult to uproot, but this and other initiatives have made some progress in recent years.