Tourists beware of taking part in prostitution, top prosecutor warns

Santo Domingo. – Justice minister Francisco Domínguez on Thursday urged the Tourism Ministry to warn tourists against supporting, complicity with or connivance with prostitution businesses, sexual exploitation or pandering.

"We ask you take the pertinent steps with hotel operators and the sector tourism in general, to let them know of our policy concerning criminal cases of pimping and human trafficking, and practices regarding sexual exploitation," the official says in a letter to Tourism minister Francisco Javier Garcia.

To fight prostitution, Dominguez announced the creation this year of the Special Prosecutor for Migrants Smuggling and Trafficking in Persons, headed by Jonathan Baro, as part of a plan to prevent and prosecute the crime.

As a result of the work by that agency and by the provincial prosecutors, which have been trained for the task, several businesses have been closed recently in various regions, where their owners or managers have been indicted and jailed pending investigations.

Dominguez also hailed the Tourism Ministry’s collaboration in all efforts to prosecute the various forms of the exploitation of children.