Gambia's Boy Toy problem: Middle-aged British women told to stop holidaying in African nation as govt wants 'quality tourists' instead
THE GAMBIA, WEST AFRICA: The Gambia, a small nation in West Africa, has become a harbor for bored middle-aged and older women seeking a saucy relationship with available toy boys. But now the government of the country is looking forward to repairing its reputation as a sex hotspot for aged women from Britain and Europe.
"What we want is quality tourists," Abubacarr Camara, director of the Gambia Tourism Board, said. "Tourists that come to enjoy the country and the culture, but not tourists that come just for sex."
ALSO READ
Thai prostitute plunges to her death during 'extravagant' balcony sex with British man
The government of the nation is planning to shift the interest of its "quality tourists" from the sex trade to the bio-diversity and cultural heritage of the country. The nation has two Unesco World Heritage sites, more than 300 species of tropical bird, and rare animals including aardvarks, hyena, Nile crocodiles, warthogs, bushpigs, monitor lizards, chameleons, geckos, puff adders, spitting cobras and green mambas.
In order to clean the tourism, the government of the African nation is said to be backing the move by considering laws to crack down on bumsters, and officials have called on the UK government to stop "British grannies" exploiting young Gambian boys.
Lamin Fatty, the national coordinator at the Child Protection Alliance, told The Daily Telegraph, "The High Commission has shown some engagement. But it’s not only about engagement, we also need financial and technical assistance."
"There could be much better collaboration between both countries to put solutions in place." The seedy liaisons were featured two years ago in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary called 'Sex on the Beach'. One woman told the program that the country was a "paradise" because "you can have a different man every night."
The business of sex tourism in The Gambia skyrocketed back in the 1990s with budget package tours to the former British colony. Since then, the nation became a tourist spot where young men willingly let older women use their bodies. It has become a major source of employment in the nation. Today over 100,000 tourists arrive each year and in 2008 travel and tourism provided 17.9 percent of GDP and 89,000 jobs, 14.4 percent of the country's total employment.
Some of the relationships between tourist women and toy boys are arranged online prior to their arrival in the country. The women purchase deals via online dealers and the toy boys pick them up from Banjul International, The Gambia’s only airport.
While online dealers are scouring the internet world, the white-sand beaches of the nation are scoured by young men known as "bumsters." These bumsters keep their eye on the beach and search for older women who also come from Holland, Sweden, and Germany to meet them. The Senegambia strip near the capital city, Banjul, has become a Benidorm-type hotspot for lonely British pensioners. A lack of jobs and low wages in The Gambia, which has a population of 2.5 million, means the financial perks of developing a relationship with a tourist are a strong incentive.
