Patricia Watson, Features Co-ordinatorJUST OVER 40 per cent of visitors to Jamaica say sex is important in choosing this island paradise, a soon-to-be released study has found. And clubs and hotels in at least three of the major tourist areas are said to be facilitating sex tourism without the adequate preventive interventions.In the study, commissioned by the University of the West Indies HIV/AIDS Response Programme (UWIHARP), researchers interviewed 500 tourists in Jamaica and the Bahamas and found that a significant percentage (28 per cent) used their trip to each country to find new partners. In addition, it found that many teenaged male tourists see the islands as ideal locations to find girls with whom to lose their virginity.
"I know guys who will go to a club with $5,000 in their pocket, take a girl into the private lounge and have sex with her and come out, and the girl will say yes cause she knows she's getting the money for it," Terrence, an 18-year-old European, living in Jamaica and a club patron, told the team that carried out ethnographic work in Montego Bay, Negril, Ocho Rios and Nassau in the Bahamas.
In addition to the tourists, 60 in-depth interviews were carried out with people living with HIV/AIDS, health workers, HIV/AIDS activists, human resource managers and policy makers. Although the study did not categorically state that the 41 per cent of visitors to whom sex was important in choosing the island did have sex, the researchers believe this may be a contributing factor in the high number of HIV cases on the tourist belt.
"I cannot definitively say that high numbers of HIV in the tourist area is linked to sex tourism, but I can say if you look at all the factors, there must be some impact. Tourism does promote interaction in ways that other industries do not. One would expect that it is easier to engage in sexual activities all evidence point to tourism as a contributing factor to the high numbers. It is not the only factor, but it does contribute," principal researcher Dr. Ian Boxill told The Sunday Gleaner.He explained that the extent of the contribution of tourism to HIV/AIDS growth is something that can be disputed as there is not enough data available.
"Maybe the next step is to try to quantify this impact in the way it is done in other countries. What this means is that more resources would have to go towards research in the field and policy makers to take this more seriously," he added.Data from the Ministry of Health showed a cumulative total of 8,097 cases of HIV/AIDS between 1982 and 2003. Of this, St. James accounted for 1,273, St. Ann 475, and Westmoreland 362, a grand total of 2,110. St James has the highest rate of HIV infection in Jamaica followed by Kingston, Hanover, St. Ann, Trelawny and Westmoreland.
The study also found that for 44 per cent of tourists who visit the Bahamas, sex was important in choosing the destination. Twenty-eight per cent of the tourists to Jamaica used the trip to find a new partner against 30 per cent in the Bahamas. For both islands, 50 per cent of the visitors did not feel they were at risk of contracting HIV.Researchers painted a picture of sex tourism, where hotels promoted staff-visitor liaisons, where casual sex occurred among locals and tourists, of sex tourism without safe sex practices and of a regional network where girls/men from Jamaica, Cuba, Bahamas and Haiti frequently sell sex in each country.SAFE SEXWhen asked about the hotels promoting staff-visitor liaisons, Dr. Boxill said: "I don't know if there is an official policy, but there are cases where guests interact with staff. There isn't a lot of this, but there appears to be some of this in some hotels."He, however, noted that what was interesting was that they found that many of the hotels and clubs, although cognisant that a significant amount of sex was taking place did nothing to promote safer sex."Most hotels and clubs do not have these programmes, if you go to a nightclub for instance, a lot of what they do is entertainment. They will tell you 'we are not going to tell our clients they should not have sex. They are here to have a good time, whatever they do afterwards is their business, so we should not be promoting safer sex because that is not what we do at the club'," Dr. Boxill explained. Chief of AIDS and Epidemiology at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Peter Figueroa was not convinced by the preliminary findings of the study.
"What he can say is that it could be a contributory factor to the spread of HIV in the area," Dr. Figueroa explained.He said the Ministry of Health and tourism industry players are well aware that some tourists come to Jamaica for sex and that HIV tends to be higher in these areas. However, data reveals sex tourism is not the primary factor driving the spread of HIV.
"Many factors are involved of which sex tourism is one. It is however important for people to understand that the primary consumers in the local commercial sex industry are Jamaicans. The industry is primarily local," he stated.
