Travellers to South East Asia expect that the regional tourism industry to take more action to protect children from exploitation.
Children talking to a foreign tourist in Sapa
This is the result of a new report issued by Project Childhood Prevention Pillar, an Australian aid initiative implemented by World Vision, in partnership with the University of Western Sydney.
Last year, more than 36 million tourists travelled to Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam and many encountered children in vulnerable situations.
The key findings of the groundbreaking report, “The Child Safe Traveller”, released on November 6, World Responsible Tourism Day, polled almost 270 travellers from 44 different countries. It found 95% of travellers surveyed encountered local children and had many interactions with children left them feeling sad, guilty, concerned and disappointed.
“There is a growing awareness of the significant risks to children who are begging or selling things at tourist sites, as well as those visited in institutional care as part of organised tours or ‘voluntourism’ experiences,” said Aarti Kapoor, Programme Manager of Project Childhood Prevention Pillar for World Vision.
Three quarters of travellers questioned were aware that children experience abuse or exploitation in connection with travel and tourism. While the majority of tourists said they want to help these at-risk children, the study showed many were confused about what actions they could take and wanted more information.
“With Asia set to receive the strongest tourism growth, globally, in the next two decades, it’s critical to build child safe tourism environments,” said Afrooz Kaviani Johnson, Technical Director of Project Childhood Prevention Pillar for World Vision. “Educating responsible travellers on how they can contribute is an essential part of this transformation.”
The study also found that information about child-safe tourism had a direct positive influence on the decisions tourists made. Travellers who were aware of child safe tourism were more likely to refrain from giving money to children begging, visiting children in institutional care and buying from children on the street.
Mr. Nguyen Khanh Hoi, National Coordinator of Project Childhood of World Vision in Vietnam, said, responsible agencies should improve their management in order to provide better prevention mechanisms in some key growing tourism services including “voluntourism” at institutional care or language teaching for street children. Tourists should be equipped with information about how they can help children who are at risk or abused.
Under Project Childhood, World Vision is building the capacity of children, community members, local authorities, government agencies, restaurants, hotels and travel agencies at many tourist sites throughout the country such as Hoa Binh, Lao Cai, Quang Nam, Danang, Quang Binh and An Giang.
