From Laos to Tokyo: The Hidden Networks of Child Sex Tourism in Asia
- The Puzzle Asia
- Oct 29, 2025
- 6 min read
Written by Camille Azan
October 29, 2025
On June 17, 2025, Japan’s embassy in Laos issued a direct advisory message, warning Japanese citizens against “buying sex from children” in Laos. This matter was brought to their attention by Ayako Iwatake, a restaurant owner in Vientiane (Laos’s capital). She launched a petition after she saw social media posts of Japanese men bragging about their experiences with child prostitution.
The embassy reminds Japanese nationals that these actions are prosecutable under both Laotian law and Japanese law, which applies extraterritorially.
The recent release of this bulletin is the occasion to explore the grave issue of child sex tourism in Asia: who is involved? How do these networks function? How do governments and lawmakers respond? How can it get better?
First, let’s define the subject. Child sex tourism is a phenomenon in which some individuals travel outside of their usual environment in order to exploit minors. These minors are usually the victims of trafficking networks. Some traffickers move victims to other countries; others keep them local.
Southeast Asia is an important epicenter, especially Cambodia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Laos.
This type of exploitation is not limited to the context of international tourism. Children can also be sexually exploited by tourists from their own country. I will give you examples for both. Some of the Japanese tourists coming to Laos are known to exploit the children there; they are sometimes guided into “child prostitution tours” organized by Japanese residents in Laos. However, on a national level, Japanese adults can also exploit Japanese children, which is an issue in Kabukichō (a red-light district in Tokyo), for instance.
The democratization of mobility that comes with economic growth has allowed wealthy Japanese men, followed by South Korean men later on, to go on sex tourism trips. Now, a new factor is making sex tourism more accessible than ever: social media.
An article by The Korea Herald has documented the proliferation of online reviews by Korean men about prostitution establishments in Southeast Asia. Some of these exchanges take place in well-guarded Naver Cafe group chats, where these men often use specific terms such as “byeonma” (referring to brothels disguised as massage salons) and “cheolchang” (establishments with around five minors confined in small rooms) to discuss names, locations and prices of these illegal venues.
We can also observe some more country-specific factors that encourage the practice of child sex tourism.
In Laos, for example, a lot of rural ethnic minority girls are lured into prostitution in part because they face discrimination from the majority Lao population, which limits their employment opportunities. Some rural girls are also exposed to arranged marriage with Chinese men, a phenomenon born from the gender imbalance in China, which has intensified with the emergence of Chinese-funded projects in Laos (such as rubber plantations).
This leads us to a harrowing figure: according to a 2017 report by ECPAT, girls under 18 represented 47.4% of the sample of sex workers studied in Laos. For reference, according to the brothels’ staff, most of the clients are Chinese, followed by Japanese, South Koreans and sometimes Westerners. This highlights a certain predatory dynamic between East Asia and Southeast Asia.
Unfortunately, the censorship in Laos means that these issues are rarely tackled by the media.
I talked about the traditional balance of power between wealthy East Asian men and poorer Southeast Asian victims. However, I also have to mention the intra-national and international child prostitution dynamics within and between East Asian countries. In Japan, the recent weakening of the yen and rise of poverty has had two consequences. First, Tokyo has become a destination for inbound sex tourism. Second, there has been a rise in foreign male clients (particularly Chinese) exploiting teenage girls and young women who engage in survival prostitution. Yoshihide Tanaka, Secretary General of the Liaison Council Protecting Youths, has stated “Now we are seeing a lot more foreign men. They come from many countries. They are white, Asian, black - but the majority are Chinese”. Financial distress linked to the Covid-19 crisis is a major factor pushing women into the sex trade, with many wanting to pay off their debts or spend money at host clubs. According to data from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, in 2023, around 43 % of women arrested for street prostitution admitted that they started this activity in order to fund visits to host clubs and underground male idols.
If we look at the legislation aspect of this subject, the issue of child sex tourism only started being acknowledged in 1996, when the first World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Stockholm set international standards.
Nowadays, the global standard is set by the UN’s 2000 Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography.
Domestically, Asian countries have their own frameworks that are thankfully evolving, although lawmaking is only one part of the solution.
In Japan, the 1999 Child Prostitution and Child Pornography Prohibition Act punishes those who commit these crimes but also those who encourage or solicit them. Authorities don’t have to wait for complaints from the victims to investigate, which should be commended since a lot of victims are too scared and manipulated to speak up. Other milestones have been reached in recent years, with the 2022 Child Sexual Victimization Prevention Plan and the 2023 raise of the age of consent. However, the enforcement is uneven, and many offenders can escape justice by moving their operations abroad.
When it comes to South Korea, the country criminalized prostitution in 2004 with the “Act on the Punishment of Intermediating in the Sex Trade”, which includes strict penalties for both the owners of brothels and their patrons. However, it seems that the sex trade within Korea has simply been displaced from red-light districts to more hidden locations like barbershops, karaokes and massage salons.
In response to international concern over the sexual exploitation of children by Korean tourists, the Korean Institute of Criminology recommended in 2013 that the government set up public campaigns against it, collaborate with travel agencies to reduce demand and strengthen punishments against the offenders. Following this, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency started catching Korean men who had traveled to the Philippines for prostitution. Indeed, just like Japan, Korea has a “nationality principle” according to which Korean nationals can be punished for engaging in prostitution abroad, even if it is legal in the country they are visiting.
Now that I have presented a few examples of legal responses, I would like to put the spotlight on a kind of player that can be crucial to the implementation of effective responses to such social issues: NGOs.
The French NGO Alliance Anti Trafic has been fighting against sexual exploitation since 2001. It started its actions in Thailand, which is an important sender, recipient and transit country in human trafficking, because it is at the center of Southeast Asia. Jürgen Thomas, the director-general of the NGO’s Thailand branch, explained that the latest large-scale physical operation that they launched was the rescue of 113 girls from a massage parlor in Bangkok. Since then, the number of foreign girls being brought to Thailand for sexual exploitation has gone down by a lot, because prostitution has developed in their home countries (Laos and Myanmar).
Another important French NGO that needs to be mentioned is AFESIP (“Agir pour les femmes en situation précaire”). It was founded by Somaly Mam in 1996 in Cambodia. It aims at the rescue and social reintegration of victims of abuse, including children. This NGO is particular because it is supported by Hun Sen, Cambodian Prime Minister from 1998 to 2023. Its influence has encouraged policy changes in Cambodia. Indeed, in January 2023, Prime Minister Hun Sen delivered his New Year’s speech from the AFESIP center, during which he inaugurated a new center for victims, announced his financial support to the actions carried out by AFESIP, and granted Somaly Mam’s request to change the law that requires minors to testify before the judge in the presence of their aggressor. This is an encouraging example of how the action of NGOs can be a pillar of change in Asia.
I want to end this blog by saying that legal frameworks are a good basis but are not enough to solve the issue of child sex tourism, because the dynamics of this problem are constantly evolving (through geographical reshaping of the networks, crime displacement, and digitalization). The abuse of children remains too common, because of factors like endemic poverty and discrimination, weak law enforcement and the influx of wealthier foreign men. Solving this issue needs to be a common effort from governments, justice systems, civil society and whistleblowers.
Sources
South China Morning Post. (2025, October 14). How child sex tourists from Japan, China and beyond are stealing girls’ future in Laos. https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3328892/how-child-sex-tourists-japan-china-and-beyond-are-stealing-girls-future-laos
Annio, F. (2025, September 14). Child sex tourism to Laos from Japan booms, driven by social media. Unseen Japan. https://unseen-japan.com/japanese-sex-tourism-laos/
Gao, M. (2025, July 29). A rare, direct warning from Japan signals a shift in the fight against child sex tourism in Asia. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/a-rare-direct-warning-from-japan-signals-a-shift-in-the-fight-against-child-sex-tourism-in-asia-261554
NDTV News Desk. (2024, November 21). Tokyo: This Asian city is emerging as sex tourism hub. It’s not where you think. NDTV. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/tokyo-this-asian-city-is-emerging-as-sex-tourism-hub-its-not-where-you-think-7074470
The Korea Herald. https://www.koreaherald.com/article/3480155
Le Petit Journal. Alliance anti-trafic : vingt ans de lutte contre la prostitution en Asie du Sud-Est. https://lepetitjournal.com/thailande/alliance-anti-trafic-vingt-ans-lutte-contre-prostitution-asie-du-sud-est-413938
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