Responsibletravel.com, a travel company operating from the UK since 2001 has issued Guidelines for partner operators for volunteering directly with vulnerable children, including in the context of orphanage volunteering.
In July 2013, Responsible.com took the unprecedented step to remove temporarily all volunteering trips to orphanages from its offers, following increasing coverage in the media highlighting the harmful impact of ‘volunteer tourism’ in children’s homes in a number of countries. Following consultations with experts in the field, the company has issued new guidelines to protect the children in the orphanages and similar settings where their volunteering projects take place.
The company has recognized that “inadvertently, well intentioned volunteers are fuelling the demand for orphans" and that there is good evidence that “orphanage volunteering is creating a surge in residential care homes, including orphanages” as service providers see these institutions as a way of drawing donors and financial contributions through the children. Evidence overwhelmingly shows that family based care is always going to be preferable for children over any other form of institutional based care and that the vast majority of children in residential care have parents and families, but are often 'recruited' to these institutions under the promise of better education.
The company also highlights that few tourists are qualified to interact with vulnerable children and these interactions short term interaction may in fact place children at further risk of harm, including to their emotional well-being as volunteers come and go, creating a "never-ending round of abandonment".
The guidelines cover volunteer trips promoted on responsibletravel.com that involve working with vulnerable children in any of the following settings: Orphanages; children's homes; youth centres (including drop-in centres); residential facilities; trafficking shelters; women and children violence refuges and other similar settings. In summary, the guidelines stipulate that:
- Only people with professional qualifications and experience are allowed to volunteer;
- Placement lengths must be for a minimum of 4 weeks;
- Volunteer operators must have a child protection policy in place and conduct criminal records checks (or equivalent).
The partner organisations must have clear and comprehensive child protection policies in place which all volunteers must agree to and clear reporting mechanisms for violence, abuse or any other form of child protection concern (including internal reporting systems and anonymous reporting to the appropriate authority. In addition, clear media, photography and publishing guidelines must be in place to govern the use of children's images and personal information.