I recently read an article in The Baltic Times about how Latvia is trying to combat Sex Tourism in the country and in Riga, specifically. You can read the whole thing here. Part of it really stuck out to me. It said:

“STOP Sex Terrorism” is a massive advertising campaign aimed at stopping this from going any further. It’s the brainchild of Re!Action, a non-governmental organization, put together in conjunction with the Alfa Center advertising agency. The campaign is sponsored by Riga Airport and more than 20 other businesses based in and around the capital. The campaign is, somewhat unconventionally, not aimed at the sex tourists themselves but at the Latvian women who participate in sex tourism by agreeing to one night stands with the revelers. It hopes to reach those women who can be found sitting with a lonely expression on their faces at the edge of the bars of the popular tourist night clubs, waiting for a foreigner who can afford to buy her the most expensive cocktail on the menu and whisk her away – for a few hours, anyway – without resorting to outright
prostitution.

“Its goal is stopping the nonchalance toward this problem, as well as raising the self-esteem of the society and younger women in particular, by making one think about whether it’s worth it to have a one-night stand for a glass of cocktail,” the Re!Action Web site says…

A recent survey conducted by the popular Internet news Web site tvnet.lv addressed the most common reasons that a woman would have a one night stand with a foreign tourist who buys them drinks. Of the 1,504 respondents to the survey, 53 percent thought that it was an issue of self confidence. Nineteen percent thought that the problem was the women’s financial situation, and 17 percent thought that the problem is the attitude of Latvian men towards women. The remaining 10 percent considered the problem as merely one of social circumstance or cited other factors.

Self confidence?!?! While I have a hard time reconciling this, deep inside I think it is true. I guess it just drives home to me one more reason why I want to show these young women that I’m friends with just how important they are and how much God loves them! I pray that they will come to a true understanding of that, really believe it, and therefore not be tempted into this lifestyle.