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Thursday, September 23, 2004
Protect women, kids from sex tourism: NGO
A GLOBAL nongovernment organization is urging Cebu to include the protection of children and women from sexual exploitation in its efforts to attract tourists to the province.
“We have to be cautious that in delivering our tourism products and services, women and children are not exploited,” said Charlie Miaco, campaign advocacy officer of End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (Ecpat)-Philippines.
During the tourism forum sponsored by Skal International at the Teatro Casino last Tuesday, he said child sex tourism is one of the issues the tourism industry must face in its marketing campaigns to make Cebu a tourism hub.
Miaco is encouraging the industry to incorporate child-wise tourism in its marketing programs.
Child-wise tourism is a training and network development program that promotes ethical and sustainable tourism practices that respect children’s rights in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Child sex tourism, on the other hand, is the commercial sexual exploitation of children by persons who travel from their own country or places to another place just to have sex with children.
Miaco said most offenders in the travel industry are tourists and business travelers—local and foreign alike.
In a separate interview, Department of Tourism (DOT) 7 Regional Director Dawnie Roa said child sex tourism is not that serious in Cebu because Cebu is vigilant about it.
“But in the smaller communities where people are not that concerned about child exploitation, these are happening. Child exploitation can happen anywhere—whether tourists are plenty or not—it’s not on the volume (of tourists). (Prevention) depends on vigilance of the community,” she told Sun.Star.
Roa said the DOT believes that child exploitation is inimical to the tourism industry and that it spells “something negative” for a tourism destination.
She said it is DOT’s policy to immediately revoke the DOT accreditation of any tourism-related establishment such as hotels if the agency receives reports that the establishment is condoning child exploitation.
Epcat’s child-wise tourism urges companies in the tourism industry to develop a company policy that will show the company’s position regarding the prevention of child abuse, including child prostitution and child sex tourism.
The policy can give procedures for staff and management on preventing and reporting abuse to authorities. (JBN)
(September 23, 2004 issue)
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