By Ogova Ondego
Published December 26, 2008
Kenya’s tourism minister, Najib Balala, on December 24, 2008 warned that tourist hotels allowing child prostitution risked losing their licences.
Balala, who took issue with international media that tout Malindi as a centre for child sex tourism, was speaking at Mwembe Resort during a UNICEF and Malindi and Watamu Tourism Welfare Group-sponsored campaign to combat sexual and commercial exploitation of children and promote responsible tourism.
Meanwhile El Salvador has been declared the most dangerous country for young people.
According to the Latin American Technological Information Network that carried out a survey on murder rates in 83 nations, El Salvador emerged the least safe nation for people aged between 15 and 24 with a murder rate of 92.3 per 100,000. Colombia, Venezuela and Guatemala came in Second, third and fourth with statistics of 73.4, 64.2 and 55.4 per every 100, 000, respectively. With 51.6 murders, Brazil is not too far behind, according to the survey, “Map of Violence: The Young People of Latin America”.
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The study, according to a Tourism-Review.Com report, ranks the safer Latin American nations as Chile, Cuba and Uruguay. Their rate of murder is ‘only’around seven. But then, Tourism-Review.Com says, they are still safer than the United States whose murder rate for young people is 12.9 per 100,000.
