‘Boy, have we got a vacation for you’: Orphanage Tourism in Cambodia and the Commodification and Objectification of the Orphaned Child

P. Jane Reas

As part of a wider qualitative study of the volunteering experience, this paper seeks to critique the problematic relationship between a touristic experience and the needs of Cambodia’s poor children. 

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The political economy of orphanage tourism in Cambodia

Tess Guiney & Mary Mostafanezhad - Tourist Studies

Taking a Polanyian political economy approach, this article illustrates how the emergence of and response to the orphanage tourism industry represent, in Karl Polanyi’s words, a ‘double movement’ between the neoliberalization of orphanages and the corollary protective countermovement by antiorphanage tourism campaigns that challenge the industry’s morality and legitimacy.

We All Need Families at the End of the Day - Special Care

Better Care Network and UNICEF

This video gives an inside look at an assisted family setting in Ghana where children with disabilities live with their foster mothers. It highlights the increased risk of family separation faced by children with special needs and advocates for the provision of quality family-based care to children who cannot be with their parents or extended families.