Tourism, travel, and child exploitation. OFFENDERS ON THE MOVE: Global Study on Sexual Exploitation of Children on Travel and Tourism. This study is the most current, comprehensive, and authoritative look at child sexual exploitation as it relates to travel and tourism…
The report was initiated to describe how and why children are vulnerable to traveling offenders… although its analysis goes farther. It doesn’t just look at links on travel and tourism, it gives a description of environmental, community, personal, political, social and cultural impacts.
It also explains how societal ills such as crime, poverty, and corruption affect families and communities in such a way that cause children to be more vulnerable. The study analyzes power relations between children and adults and explores how perpetrators use that power imbalance to their advantage. It looks at how those power structures are embedded in various cultures. Those may take different forms in different nations but the final result is the same: the sexual exploitation of children is accepted, justified, ignored or facilitated by many people. It shows the many ways that adult society fails to protect children.
The study consists of a nine regional desk reviews, fifteen country-specific studies, forty-two papers by partners and experts, nine consultants with stakeholders and ten consultations with children and youth. The sections of the report most relevant for North America are here. The North America Regional Report ties together the ways that the travel sector and child sexual exploitation intersect, because sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism happens in the United States and Canada too.
The report calls for the ratification of international child rights instruments, stronger law, more reliable data, laws, awareness raising among the public, the need to address demand and the importance of both private sector engagement and cross-sector partnerships.
ECPAT is a network of local civil society organisations and coalitions. Their common goal is to end the sexual exploitation of children globally. At the heart of all our work are the voices of children, reflected across our research agenda, programmes and campaigns.
To read the entire article about tourism, travel, and child exploitation, click on the link below.
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