A time for the tourism industry to end orphanage trafficking
By Miriam Karmali, Freedom United
| The pandemic has hit the travel industry hard, and that includes companies offering volunteer placements abroad. But this crisis also presents an opportunity for volunteer tour operators to break the cycle of exploitation once and for all by committing NOW to stop offering orphanage placements, even after we emerge from this pandemic. Let’s grab this moment to make sustainable change and ask the tourism industry to ensure it doesn’t facilitate orphanage trafficking driven by foreign donations and volunteers. Call on volunteer tour operators asking them to commit to no longer offer orphanage placements as an option once they are able to start placing volunteers. |
| Sign the petition |
| International travel and tourism have all but come to a halt. We are concerned that children trafficked into orphanages that depend on donations from tourists to make profit may be further neglected as the drying up of financial support takes its toll.[1] But if the tourism industry makes clear that the orphanage volunteering economy will not resume, we can prevent many more children from being trafficked into orphanages in future. Eighty percent of children in orphanages around the world have a living parent[2] that could look after them with the right support. Poor families are vulnerable to being taken advantage of by traffickers who promise to provide their children with an education and opportunities. Instead, these children are kept in institutions where they are often neglected, exploited and forced to interact with foreign volunteers to generate donations that end up in the pockets of traffickers and orphanage directors. Kate van Doore is an expert on orphanage trafficking and explained to Al Jazeera what is partly facilitating this kind of exploitation: |
“We’re trained in western countries to think a certain way about developing countries and one of those ways is that orphanages are a great way of caring for children who otherwise would be living in poverty – this drives the separation of children from their families.”
Alisha, real name Jikten, was rescued from an orphanage in Nepal and reunited with her family. Today, she reflects on the harms of orphanage trafficking:
“I’m seeing that lots of children are still living in orphanages – even if they have a family. I feel terrible when I encounter them because I’ve been through that.”[3]
During this time of decreased travel, volunteer tour operators have a chance to rethink how they work with institutions and how they can plan to responsibly move away from working with orphanages after the worst of this crisis is over.
Over 100,000 supporters have already added their names. Let’s keep up the pressure – ask volunteer tour operators today to stop offering orphanage placements and rethink how they operate after COVID-19.
In solidarity,
Miriam and the Freedom United team
[1] https://www.wearelumos.org/news-and-media/2020/03/20/covid-19-considerations-vulnerable-children/
[2] https://www.wearelumos.org/news-and-media/2018/04/16/bogus-orphan-trade-fuelled-voluntourism/
[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2020/05/nepal-fake-orphans-200507134521247.html
