25 Years of Dutch Political Debate on Child Sexual Exploitation by Tourists
Joanne van der Leun is a Professor of Criminology at Leiden University. Anneke Koning is an Assistant Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
This post is based on their article Origin stories: Framing 25 years of Dutch political discourse on child sexual exploitation by tourists and travelers, published in the European Journal of Criminology (2023).
How can we better understand sexual exploitation of children in the context of travel and tourism (SECTT; also known as ‘child sex tourism’)? In our recent article in European Journal of Criminology, we wanted to know how the issue is perceived and framed politically. ‘Framing’ refers to the (re) telling of an experienced or witnessed event, in which the teller often selects ‘some aspects of a perceived reality and make[s] them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described’. (1) To assess this, we critically analyzed political debates and policy measures proposed by the Dutch government to combat SECTT. Bacchi's ‘what's the problem represented to be?’ approach guided a systematic critical discourse analysis of over 200 political documents published between 1995 and 2020. In this blog, we outline our research process, highlight key findings, and reflect on the utility of this research method.
Data collection and analysis
The main source for the analysis was a corpus of Dutch parliamentary and policy documents and debates produced between 1995 and 2020. To locate relevant documents, we used the searched publicly available digital databases with political documents, such as the archive of the Dutch House of Representatives, for mentions of ‘child sex tourism’. In total, we found 427 unique documents in the databases on the basis of our search terms, which were systematically assessed for relevance using a decision tree. Finally, 241 documents were found to be relevant. For the analysis we used critical discourse analysis augmented through a qualitative content analysis, analyzed in Atlas.ti. Content codes focused on three descriptive questions: (a) how is the problem described and labeled, (b) which actors are described, and (c) which measures are put forth? Following Bacchi (2009), we operated from the assumption that proposed and undertaken measures illuminate implicit assumptions about various causes and aspects of the problem, as does the description of actors.
Results
Our longitudinal analysis identified four distinct phases in Dutch political discourse on SECTT. Initially (1995-2006), the issue received little attention. Interest grew from 2007-2010, involving multiple ministries, most notably Justice and Foreign Affairs, but also Youth and Families and Internal Affairs. In 2012, the first comprehensive policy plan emerged under the Ministry of Justice. After 2012, discussions peaked, and ownership of the problem had shifted from the numerous sources mentioned before to the Ministry of Justice. In the final four years in the corpus, the number of mentions decreased, with responsibilities diversifying again.
SECTT was predominantly framed as a crime issue, necessitating criminal justice system responses on the one hand, and a human rights frame on the other hand. A third frame is a public health frame. As expected, SECTT was most often discussed and represented as a crime problem. SECTT was only occasionally represented as a human rights problem, in particular when the focus shifts to victims, with solutions targeting aspects like children’s rights or systemic factors related to victim vulnerability. Primary offender-focused prevention, which would fall under the public health framing, was largely absent due to the politically sensitive nature of being seen to ‘help pedophiles’.
Implications
In short, we find that the problem is primarily understood from a criminal justice perspective, contrasting with a human rights perspective. Similar findings have been found in research on human trafficking (e.g. Charnysh, Lloyd & Simmons, 2015; Farrell & Fahy, 2009). Remarkably, however, by far the largest category of reported and proposed actions in this corpus can be classified as abstract, vague and purely facilitative. We found hundreds of mentions of measures such as inventorying possible responses, developing action plans and national policy, learning from earlier interventions, prioritization, or strengthening existing measures; for all of these, it is unclear how they (are expected to) help to ‘solve’ the problem.
Added value and limitations of our approach
Our approach does not measure the prevalence or the nature of SECTT, but reveals why the current policies fall short. We argue that the dominant crime frame oversimplifies the issue to a problem of (risk management of) stereotypical ‘bad guys’. This facilitates the ignoring of underlying, systemic causes of SECTT, such as economic inequalities (2), and closes off consideration for the inherent connections with structural issues, such as victim vulnerabilities, mental health, sexual expression, and cultural values. In other words, a discourse analysis not only sheds light on what is being said, but also at the ‘silences’ in a debate (what is not being said). Identifying these silences is an important first step in informing more holistic policy approaches.
The effectiveness of discourse analysis depends on data availability. Records of political debates and discussions are valuable, but media data can also be highly informative. These data are likely to be messy and imperfect. Longitudinal approaches are key to discerning trends in debates. A software tool to analyze qualitative data (preferably in collaboration with a fellow researcher) is needed to ensure reliability (we chose Atlas.Ti, but there are also other content analysis software packages, such as Nvivo and MaxQDA). Finally, keep in mind that to do justice to the research question, the analysis must be systematic, nuanced and precise, making it time consuming.
(1) Robert M. Entman, Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm, 43 J. OF COMMC’N 51, 52 (1993).
(2) Anneke Koning & Johan van Wilsem, The Context of Sexual Exploitation of Children by Tourists and Travelers: A Cross-National Comparison of Destination Countries and Non-Destination Countries, 33 INT’L CRIM. JUST. REV. 349 (2022).
Cite as: Joanna van & Anneke Koning, 25 Years of Dutch Political Debate on Child Sexual Exploitation by Tourists, LAW AS SCIENCE: LEGAL METHOD LAB (Mar. 27, 2025), www.lawasscience.org/25-years-of-dutch-political-debate-on-child-sexual-exploitation-by-tourists.
