Eastern Europe has become a new destination for those traveling in search of sex, particularly for pedophiles, according to Italian child protection associations.
As monitoring has tightened in many Asian countries, traditional destinations for pedophiles, they are increasingly turning to impoverished countries in Eastern Europe."The Czech Republic is known for the vast amount of pedophilic material produced and offered online," said Marco Scarpati, president of the Italian association for the protection of children’s rights.
Child prostitution is particularly widespread on Czech highways. From the German border to the interior of the Czech Republic, children of all ages are offered for prostitution on highways E48 and E49. "Truck drivers have even reported this to us," the newspaper Corriere della Sera quoted Scarpati on Thursday. According to him, "customers" are Germans, Austrians, and Italians, whose mothers and pimps offer children for five to 25 euros.
The situation is similar in northern Russia. In St. Petersburg and surrounding cities, many street children offer sex in exchange for drugs. One of the destinations for European pedophiles is Morocco. "Moroccan adolescents even offer themselves on the social media platform Facebook," Scarpati stated. Pedophilic tourism generates a turnover of about 250 billion euros annually, and many pedophiles from Europe are taking advantage of the increasing availability of cheap flights.
