Collective action, data are main challenges to fighting child sex tourism

Two weeks ago, the United Nations World Tour­ism Organ­iz­a­tion (UNWTO) HQ in Mad­rid hos­ted a “trans­ition meet­ing on imple­ment­ing the recom­mend­a­tions” of the study.

Inter­na­tion­al experts met to dis­cuss meas­ures to fight against the sexu­al exploit­a­tion of chil­dren in travel & tour­ism (SECTT).

Par­ti­cipants of a “trans­ition meet­ing on imple­ment­ing the recom­mend­a­tions” of a child sex tour­ism study, UNWTO, July 2017.

The ini­ti­at­ive, includ­ing the study, was coordin­ated by ECPAT Inter­na­tion­al with the sup­port of the gov­ern­ment of The Netherlands.

Des­pite inter­na­tion­al efforts to stop SECTT, abet­ted by tech­no­logy, the sheer speed and scale of this crime has, to date, out-paced attempts to respond at the inter­na­tion­al and nation­al level, accord­ing to a UNWTO press release.

UNWTO Sec­ret­ary-Gen­er­al Taleb Rifai said: “We can­not build the respons­ible and sus­tain­able tour­ism sec­tor that we seek without pro­tect­ing the most vul­ner­able in our soci­et­ies. To do so we need effect­ive tools and a glob­al commitment.

“Art­icle 2 of UNWTO’s Glob­al Code of Eth­ics for Tour­ism under­lines that the exploit­a­tion of human beings in any form, espe­cially when applied to chil­dren, con­flicts with the fun­da­ment­al aims of tour­ism and is the neg­a­tion of tourism.”

Rifai added that UNWTO “is pro­gress­ing with trans­form­ing the Code into a leg­ally bind­ing inter­na­tion­al treaty, the UNWTO Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Tour­ism Eth­ics, which we hope will be approved by our Gen­er­al Assembly next September.”

Najat Maalla M’jid, Chair of the World Tour­ism Net­work on Child Protection

Najat Maalla M’jid, Chair of the World Tour­ism Net­work on Child Pro­tec­tion, which guided the devel­op­ment of the study, declared: “Sexu­al exploit­a­tion in travel and tour­ism has a child’s face. No coun­try is untouched by this phe­nomen­on and no child is immune.

“In this Inter­na­tion­al Year of Sus­tain­able Tour­ism for Devel­op­ment, let us place children’s right to pro­tec­tion from viol­ence and exploit­a­tion at the heart of our actions.”

The Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on child traf­fick­ing and sexu­al exploit­a­tion, Maud de Boer Buquic­chio, called for “child pro­tec­tion to be placed at the core of tour­ism devel­op­ment strategies”.

UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on child traf­fick­ing and sexu­al exploit­a­tion, Maud de Boer Buquicchio

The rise of the inter­net and inform­al oper­at­ors as well as great­er access to inter­na­tion­al travel have expan­ded ‘demand’ and heightened the dangers for children.

At the same time, grind­ing poverty and lack of edu­ca­tion — com­bined with the con­tin­ued neg­lect of child pro­tec­tion sys­tems — have fuelled the ‘sup­ply’ of children.

Accord­ing to the UNWTO release, the inter­na­tion­al experts assembled in Mad­rid believed they had “at least some of the answers, but they need wider engage­ment”. (More meetings?)

Global initiatives against child sex tourism

One of the glob­al ini­ti­at­ives was by Inter­pol, which tried to reduce the pos­sib­il­ity for known sex offend­ers to travel unnoticed.

Peter van Dalen, from Interpol’s Organ­ized & Emer­ging Crime Dir­ect­or­ate, said: “Anonym­ity pro­tects trav­el­ing sex offend­ers, and INTERPOL is work­ing with coun­tries to deprive known sex offend­ers’ of their anonym­ity, through mech­an­isms such as an inter­na­tion­al warn­ing sys­tem shar­ing inform­a­tion across bor­ders about con­victed sex offend­ers, as well as an inter­na­tion­al vet­ting sys­tem for job applic­ants apply­ing to work­ing with children.”

Peter van Dalen of Interpol’s Organ­ized & Emer­ging Crime Directorate

Engage­ment with the private sec­tor, motiv­ated by the need to ‘get ahead’ of prac­tices that can ser­i­ously affect their repu­ta­tion and their bot­tom line, is vital.

Under­scor­ing this, and the fact that no coun­try is immune, were the recently repor­ted examples from the US of flight attend­ants inter­ven­ing when they noticed unusu­al situ­ations involving chil­dren trav­el­ling with adults.

Fur­ther­more, invest­ments by the travel and tour­ism industry in train­ing staff and access to report­ing sys­tems can pay dividends.

The chal­lenge remains to expand coordin­ated action against SECTT.

The Spe­cial Rep­res­ent­at­ive of the UN Sec­ret­ary-Gen­er­al Marta San­tos Pais said: “The 2030 Agenda for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment presents a unique oppor­tun­ity to reverse this pat­tern and make all forms of viol­ence against chil­dren part of our dis­tant past.”

Downloads

Snip from the cov­er of “Offend­ers on the Move: Glob­al Study on Sexu­al Exploit­a­tion of Chil­dren in Travel & Tour­ism 2016”

Glob­al (PDF 2 MB)

Offend­ers on the Move: Glob­al Study on Sexu­al Exploit­a­tion of Chil­dren in Travel & Tour­ism 2016

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