I felt that same nausea when I opened up the Daily News recently to read Stu Bykofsky's column, which flirted with the propriety of sex tourism in Thailand.
The column, "Thai hospitality with a dark side," described Mr. Bykofsky' s recent trip to Asia to meet up with a college buddy who relishes Thailand's illegal sex industry. Mr. Bykofsky establishes himself as an industry expert, listing street names, how much to pay and astounding claims that there are "no pimps," little drug addiction, and that women are "independent contractors" - claims refuted by human-rights organizations that study international sex trafficking.
The column dances around the pedophilia rampant in the Thai sex industry. Mr. Bykofsky describes one scene with a stunning lack of morality: "When I see a young woman walking with a farang (foreigner) who looks like a Pop-Pop leading his granddaughter by the hand to a Toys 'R' Us, I feel bad. They are not headed to the toy store. They are headed to his bedroom."
Perhaps if the Daily News had fact-checked Mr. Bykofsky they'd have found that 25 percent of sex workers in Thailand are under the age of 18, according to a UNESCO report. The Coalition Against Trafficking of Women has documented that a majority of Thai women trafficked into the sex industry are between the ages of 12 and 16. The U.S. Department of Justice reports on the "appalling" lives of child prostitutes who serve 2-30 clients per week. That's 100-1,500 clients per year, per child.
This is not Pop-Pop taking the grandchild to the toy store. This is not about feeling "bad." This is predators and possible pedophiles exploiting impoverished and often forced victims while Mr. Bykofsky muses about it all.
The column manipulates a host of shocking race, class and gender stereotypes to justify this behavior. Consider:
