Sex tourism

Though we had read about it being one of the more common things found in the country, the number of people visibly practising sex tourism was nonetheless an unfortunate surprise.

I guess there is a reason why it is called the oldest profession in the world and, in a country which offers limited chances for personal enrichment, it also seems like a fairly obvious thing that people will use the most basic of resources: their body.

The thing that was the oddest to us was the way in which it was visible.

Sure, you would occasionally see a middle-aged white gentleman with a young Gambian girl and get suspicious of foul play but the strikingly different nature of hooking there is the amount of middle-aged or often third aged white ladies moving around holding hands with young Gambians.

Maybe this demonstrates some level of bigotry from my side but whenever I thought of prostitution I thought about men paying for sex. Here, for the most part, what you see are ladies paying for, I suppose, company, admiration and surely sex as well. I was honestly taken aback by this sight.

I was also surprised how open it all seemed to be.

At Cape Point, there wasn't a day in which we did not see examples of this right there at the beach, at Bijilo beach we saw one such couple actually making out in the sea and at Senegambia we saw a lady that must have been in her 70´s lovingly holding hands with a guy who for sure was in his 20´s.

I don´t know about you but seeing a grandma practising sex tourism for me was just… cringeworthy.

In many ways, it also explains the level of tourism in this country.

Infrastructure is limited, services are not extravagant and the level of luxury is minimal, especially compared with so many resorts all over the world. Intrepid adventurers aside, I suppose a lot of the people going there need to have a different type of motivation and sex tourism often seems to be it. This, in turn, leaves the authorities with limited options when considering how to act. I mean, nobody wants to kill the goose laying the golden eggs...

Irrespective of age difference though, as long as both sides are of legal age and consenting, I suppose it is fine. When it is not fine is when children are involved.

While we cannot directly say that we saw children being used in any such way, there were moments which got a bit suspicious. Kids winking at A and offering her a husband were one of these examples but a better one was with a couple of travellers from England that we met at Kafuta. Same as everywhere, he had been approached by children while walking but in this case, a young girl insisted on walking with him and wanted to go with him into his chamber. Fortunately, he refused but for sure there are monsters out there that take advantage of these situations and if that young girl was trying this, it is unlikely it was the first time.

Surely no place in the world is perfect and I hope that this black stain in the beauty of The Gambia is one day cleansed.