The Caribbean is a region currently experiencing tension, with hunger in Haiti doubling in the past six months, and a full-blown economic war intensifying between the Dominican Republic and the conglomeration of Caribbean islands that forms the Caribbean Community.
In the middle of this tension, the government of the Dominican Republic -- bogged down by a refugee crisis due to the earthquake which devastated neighboring Haiti and set off a cholera outbreak -- implemented a national identification law.
This law meant that any person who could not prove their identity, or that they were over the age of legal adulthood, would be prevented from engaging in labor in the country. This year, the Dominican Republic received over 5 million tourists, and many of these individuals travel to the Dominican Republic because they know that a large number of undocumented, desperate Haitian minors are lying ripe for exploitation.
The crisis is so severe that the Dominican government may soon need to build more prisons in order to accommodate the number of European tourists apprehended engaging in criminal behavior against undocumented Haitian youth.
Instead of working to help the Dominican Republic combat the scourge of sex tourism, what did most members of the European elite do? They criticized Dominican citizenship law, waging a full-blown media campaign that has only abated because Europe itself is currently facing a refugee crisis which has led to the rise of far-right nationalism and thus blatant hypocrisy.
In June of 2015, the large-circulation Dutch newspaper warned of "Mass Deportations in the Dominican Republic," accusing the government of deporting underage sex workers born in the country. Since that time, European governments have routinely engaged in the deportation of people born within its territories, highlighting the discrepancy in the way the media reports events in countries where European elites go to exploit minors.
