Orphanage Tourism, Voluntourism and Trafficking

A growing evidence base has consistently highlighted the negative impact on children of living in institutional care such as orphanages – especially when parents or close family members are still living nearby. The increasing trend in volunteering in or visiting these facilities compounds the issue and the impact on children. Not only does it encourage the expansion of orphanages, but it also makes children vulnerable to abuse in those areas where regulation is lax, creates attachment problems in children who become attached to short-term visitors, and can heighten the risk for unregulated inter-country adoption by well-intentioned volunteers who form a bond with a child and want to take them home.

This section highlights resources focused on international volunteering, tourism, and donations in residential care centres.

Displaying 51 - 60 of 133

Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO),

CAFO engaged with markempa to study how OVC-serving organizations inspired donors to give toward a new model of family-based care. In this guide, you’ll learn the five steps to help transition your donors to improve fundraising outcomes and create the financial capacity to provide better care for vulnerable children and families.

Samantha Lyneham and Lachlan Facchini - Australian Institute of Criminology,

This paper summarises the processes by which children become vulnerable to sexual exploitation and related harms within or facilitated by orphanages.

Kristen Cheney & Stephen Ucembe - Disadvantaged Childhoods and Humanitarian Intervention,

This chapter explicates the concept of the orphan industrial complex to argue that persistent narratives of “orphan rescue” not only commodify orphans and orphanhood itself but—counter to their stated goal—can actually spur the “production” of “orphans,” resulting in child exploitation and trafficking.

Kwabena Frimpong-Manso, Antoine Deliege, Theresa Wilson and Yvonne Norman - Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care,

The paper describes the findings of a geographical mapping and analysis of residential care facilities in four regions of Ghana.

Responsible Tourism Partnership & Martin Punaks,

It is now widely accepted that visiting or volunteering in orphanages is harmful to children. The purpose of this resource is to bring together in one place some the best resources about this issue in order to assist travel and volunteering organisations.

Kathryn E. van Doore and Rebecca Nhep - Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity,

This article by Kathryn E. van Doore and Rebecca Nhep, published in the Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity, describes how orphanage trafficking occurs as a process of child trafficking.

Pippa Biddle,

This chapter from the book Modern Day Slavery and Orphanage Tourism aims to identify the motivations behind voluntourism, categorizing them into types so as to provide a foundation upon which we might better assess why it is that so many voluntourists seek to work with children, often in institutional environments.

Leigh Mathews - Modern Day Slavery and Orphanage Tourism,

This chapter from the book Modern Day Slavery and Orphanage Tourism responds to the question of how sending countries (of people, money and resources) contribute to the institutionalization of children in receiving countries.

Homecoming Project,

This guide was developed by Homecoming and has been written to help those in the Christian community who are thinking about whether they should volunteer in an orphanage (or residential care institution, children’s village, children’s home or centre).

Chloe Sanguinetti - Modern Day Slavery and Orphanage Tourism,

This chapter from the book Modern Day Slavery and Orphanage Tourism draws on the author's film The Voluntourist that has aided in raising the groundswell of objection to orphanage tourism.