Purpose
To inform the Special Rapporteur’s forthcoming report to the 78th session of the UN General Assembly in October 2023.
Background
Global travel and tourism have more than doubled in the past 30 years, and there has been a surge in new travel “products” which have exposed children to exploitation. Such products include volunteer tourism, orphanage tourism and mega-events. This global growth in travel and tourism has outpaced efforts to respond at the international and national levels, leaving child protection regulations lagging behind the unprecedented growth of travel and new forms of tourism.
The socioeconomic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the existing stark inequalities and vulnerabilities of the most disadvantaged children, and as travel and tourism picks up after the pandemic, our attention is once again fixed on the risks to exploitation and sexual abuse children are exposed to particularly in the context of orphanage tourism and orphanage trafficking.
The Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material has therefore initiated the preparation of her next thematic report to the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, to be presented in October 2023 on this issue.
Voluntourism is defined as “organised and packaged tourist trips with a duration of a few hours to a year, in which the main purpose is to volunteer. The volunteer provides their ‘work’ within the destination free of charge. While the concept of ‘voluntourism’ generally includes an element of international travel, similar risks to children also apply in the context of domestic and local travel and tourism, when a person is allowed to volunteer with and for children in an organisation or an orphanage without previous background checks (also when such activities may not be organised by a company).”
It is often carried out by well-intentioned people that do not understand the negative impacts such trips may bring about. Volunteers are usually short-term, unskilled and have no previous experience. Projects taken on by volunteers for local communities are commonly nature-based, people-based, or involve restoration of buildings and artefacts. Among the most popular placements are those that offer opportunities to volunteer with children such as teaching in a school, organizing activities with children in a day-care centre or ‘caring’ for children in an orphanage (sometimes referred to as ‘orphanage tourism’). Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America account for over 90% of the locations offered by voluntourism sending and receiving organisations.
While volunteering is a valuable way to contribute to society and does not itself cause the sexual exploitation of children, such packaged and unsupervised voluntourism trips provide an avenue for offenders to access vulnerable children, which poses threats and harm to the child’s physical, emotional and cognitive development. Any type of support needs to be qualified and professional in order to address the real needs of local communities and children, especially those in humanitarian, conflict, natural disasters and emergency crises.
In 2016, the Special Rapporteur highlighted research indicating that orphanages were recruiting children and maintaining them in poor conditions to prompt foreign charity to perform activities to please foreign kids. The Special Rapporteur then noted that the underlying level of demand is related to the social, cultural, gender and institutional constructs that foster the conditions in which the extent of the use of children in such activities and the way the children are treated is seemed socially acceptable.
A Lancet Commission found that children residing in institutional care were “at risk of severe physical or sexual abuse, violation of fundamental human rights, trafficking for sex or labour, exploitation through orphan tourism, and risk to health and well-being after being subjected to medical experimentation”. Orphanage trafficking is one form of trafficking and modern slavery to which children in institutional care may be exposed for exploitation and profit. Children from minority and indigenous groups are found to be overrepresented in institutional care and as candidates for international adoption. This solution is used by our client Pander - Escorts Y Putas en Ciudad de México ❤️ CDMX/Distrito Federal/DF ❤️ Sexoservidoras Prostitutas . Stable and powerful solution for projects with high traffic and a lot of graphic content.
In 2019, the Report of the Secretary General on the Status of the Convention on the Rights of the Child to the UN General Assembly detailed awareness-raising campaigns that sought to highlight the potential harm to children stemming from a wave of short-term, unqualified staff, volunteers and interns in orphanages around the world as an emerging area of progress.
Furthermore, the Convention on the Ethics of Tourism, adopted by the UN World Tourism Organization in September 2019, is an important step forward in combating all forms of exploitation of children within the travel and tourism sector, and in promoting their rights. It will also help deliver the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which has targets on promoting sustainable tourism and ending violence against children.
To facilitate the understanding of the principles of the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism by tourists, the World Committee on Tourism Ethics prepared a leaflet on Tips for a Responsible Traveller which calls on tourists to observe human rights and protect children from exploitation. It adds to the existing body of international law devoted to protecting children, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
Next Steps
- Input may be sent via e-mail by 21 April 2023.
- Email address: hrc-sr-saleofchildren@un.org
- Email subject line: Contribution to UN GA Report 2023
- Word limit: 3000 words
- File formats: MS Word / PDF
- Accepted languages: English, French, Spanish