Bill threatens jail time
for ‘sex tours’A Honolulu business owner says
his tours were for shopping, too
Any travel agent in Hawaii caught offering, booking or selling a "sex tour" would face up to five years in prison under a bill advancing at the Legislature.
The Senate Human Services Committee and the House Judiciary Committee have approved similar measures to crack down on sex tours to places such as Thailand.
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It was prompted by a 2002 complaint to state officials by Equality Now, a New York-based women's rights organization. It said a Honolulu travel agency had placed explicit advertisements on a Web site offering the "Ultimate Asian Sex Tour" to Thailand every May and November.
"The individuals and businesses creating the victimization and profiting from the sex trade must stop," the Senate Human Services Committee said in advancing the bill to the Judiciary Committee this week.
The measure notes that the global sex tour business has grown to an estimated $1 billion annual industry and contributes to trafficking in women and girls in developing nations where enforcement of prostitution laws are lax.
Equality Now's complaint with the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs was against Melvin Hamaguchi, owner of Video Travel, which at the time had a Web site offering the tours to Thailand.
JoAnn Uchida of the department's Regulated Industries Complaints Office said an investigation of Video Travel is continuing.
Hamaguchi said yesterday that he had closed his business and shut down his admittedly suggestive Web site in October, a month before Equality Now sponsored a protest rally outside his home.
"That came as a surprise to me," he said. "All the things they said about me, about me being involved in child prostitution and slave labor, are not true."
He said that his twice-a-year tours, for which he charged about $800 a person, involved visits to bars only as part of the itinerary, which also included sightseeing, shopping and dining.
