Women’s Bodies are Not Tourist Attractions: An Anti-imperialist, Transnational Feminist Perspective on World Tourism Day

Every September 27 the United Nations commemorates World Tourism Day, a day to portray tourism as an economic catalyst and present it as a legitimate pathway to “sustainable development” for countries. As transnational feminists, we reject this narrative and stand firm that tourism does not exist outside the legacies of colonialism, imperialism, and patriarchy. People from the Global North (the colonizing regions of the world) have the means to travel to the Global South (historically colonized places), creating the conditions of the exploitative and extractive nature of this industry. We denounce tourism that reproduces these unequal power relations, particularly in fueling the sex tourism that preys on and commodifies women and girls.

As an organization of women of color who have histories rooted in the colonization of our ancestral homelands, AF3IRM chapter members recognize how this global sexploitation of women also occurs in our locales.

The most egregious recent example of sex tourism unfolded at the intersection of imperialism and the military-prostitution complex, a system AF3IRM Hawai‘i has long fought to dismantle.

On September 2, 2026, the USS Lincoln, carrying 5,000 US sailors and marines, docked in Pattaya, Thailand. This destination is internationally recognized as a hub for sex tourism catering to men, extending beyond military personnel. AF3IRM understands the sexual commodification of women today are repeats and continuations of the past, manifestations of imperialist and patriarchal frameworks that treat women's bodies as extraction sites and disposable commodities. We recognize the historical pattern of military presence fueling sexual exploitation and funneling women into the sex trade, as some of our members are direct descendants of "comfort women," women from Korea, the Philippines, and other occupied countries who were forced by Imperial Japan to become military sex slaves before and during World War II. The military prostitution complex masks sexual servitude (“R&R” for soldiers) as commerce exchange, while women’s bodies are repeatedly weaponized as battlegrounds for militarized patriarchy and imperialism.

In San Diego, men cross the US/Mexico border into Tijuana and are provided a free tourist shuttle to a notorious strip club in the red light district in order to participate in "the full experience," turning the sexual exploitation and commodification of women into a packaged tourist experience. Tijuana is a border city, demonstrating the imperial power dynamics between the demand of US sex buyers from the Global North and the exploited sex sellers of the Global South.

Our Hawai’i chapter carries forward the words of Haunani-Kay Trask, “all this hype is necessary to hide the truth about tourism, the awful exploitative truth that the industry is the major cause of environmental degradation, low wages, land dispossession, and the highest cost of living in the United States.” Sex tourism in Hawaiʻi has long been intertwined with the presence of the US military and the broader tourism industry. Tourists are welcomed and encouraged to return to the islands, free to consume without restraint. When the perception of a “dream vacation” is prioritized over fair wages and lack of access to resources, often amid one natural disaster after another, it's no coincidence that 43% of Hawaiʻiʻs sex trafficking cases are Kānaka Maoli girls trafficked in Waikīkī. AF3IRM Hawaiʻi has also highlighted the relationship between US military exercises such as RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) and surges in demand for commercial sex that exposes how militarization, tourism, and the commodification of women and girls reinforce one another. 

This past summer, the 2026 FIFA World Cup took place across 16 cities in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, including where three AF3IRM chapters are located: Los Angeles, Boston, and NY/NJ. Due to a massive influx of tourists, sex trafficking and exploitation can intensify around major sporting events. While this exploitation occurs year-round, we also denounce the hyperpolicing that disproportionately impacts women and girls in the sex trade where “women and girls bear the brunt of the legal consequences associated with the sex trade, while the men who purchase them largely enjoy impunity and anonymity.”  An industry and tourism economy that welcomes men’s spending while policing and exploiting the women and girls whose bodies it commodifies cannot be considered “sustainable development.” 

The women of AF3IRM challenge the sanitized portrayal of tourism and reject the normalization of the industry’s exploitation. It replicates the inequalities between “rich” and “poor” countries, between men and women, between colonizers and the colonized. 

Neither land nor women are territories for conquest!

End the patriarchal access to women’s bodies!