Revisiting the Trafficking–Sex Tourism Nexus: Reflections on the Approach of Treaty Bodies

Abstract This note critically examines the tendency of some international human rights treaty bodies to uncritically conflate sex tourism with human trafficking. Through analysis of concluding observations from the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), the note reveals a troubling pattern of equating these phenomena without adequate conceptual differentiation. While acknowledging that sex tourism can involve trafficking when the constitutive elements of the Palermo Protocol’s definition are satisfied – namely the act, means, and purpose requirements – this note argues that the wholesale characterization of sex tourism as trafficking is both conceptually inaccurate and potentially harmful. This conflation risks eliding the agency of individuals who make difficult but deliberate choices to participate in sex tourism, particularly women from the Global South.