This article explores how the demand for orphanage tourism, whether from volunteers or holidaymakers visiting or donating, can fuel child trafficking and abuse. In Cambodia, for example, UNICEF has expressed concern that orphanages have become so lucrative that the “demand” from tourists and volunteers had created supply and that tourism was unwittingly financing the creation of orphanages, populated by children who were not, in fact, orphans. The article also discusses the Better Care Network's work to raise awareness of the risks to children through international volunteering in residential care centres and to ensure that people who are travelling internationally, and planning or considering volunteering or participating in mission activities, make ethical and responsible choices about how and where they undertake such activities.
