The Mexican Senate has approved an amendment to the General Tourism Law aimed at preventing the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents.
A new measure will require tourism service providers to verify, via official documentation, the kinship, parental authority, guardianship or care and custody status of minors traveling with adults. If such a relationship cannot be proven, service providers, such as hotels and rentals, must refuse their booking — regardless of whether it is made in person or electronically — and immediately notify authorities for further investigation.
It has yet to be established which official documents will serve as proof of identity, and what specific tourism providers will be obliged to comply. As noted by the lawyer Magda Zayas in an opinion piece for the newspaper Diario del Istmo, the amendment’s effective implementation will require training of front-line personnel and critical back-end updates to online booking systems that operate in Mexico.
Citing data from World Vision Mexico, the Senate said in a statement that the country is the second-largest destination for the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, and it ranks first globally in the consumption of child pornography.
PAN Senator Laura Esquivel Torres said that Mexico will stop being a destination for sexual exploitation of minors thanks to the amendment.
“Pedophiles don’t come to Mexico by chance; they come because they have the opportunity to do so here, because they know Mexico is a pedophile’s paradise. Well, starting today, we will begin to shut down these opportunities,” Esquivel said.
Meanwhile, PRI Senator Carolina Viggiano Austria mentioned that more than 16,000 children are trapped in sexual exploitation networks in Mexico, primarily in tourist destinations.
According to the bill, the Tourism Ministry has defined the sexual exploitation of minors in the tourism sector as occurring when an offender poses as a domestic or foreign tourist and travels to a specific destination to initiate sexual contact with minors.
The bill was approved unanimously, with 104 votes, and sent to the president’s office for signing.
Similar initiatives are taking place at the local level. In May, the Association of Hotels of Cancún, Puerto Morelos and Isla Mujeres (AHCPMIM), Quintana Roo, formalized its commitment to “The Code,” a global initiative seeking to eradicate the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents in the travel and tourism sector.
