FLORENCE, Italy, 25 April 2008 – Two related topics – combating child sex tourism, and corporate social responsibility – were key discussion points at the expert consultation on child sexual exploitation and trafficking hosted by the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre (IRC). The gathering was the first of series of meetings and workshops with child rights experts, governments, children and other stakeholders to develop recommendations for the third World Congress against Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents. The congress will be held in Rio de Janeiro in late November.
Preventing child sex tourism will feature prominently at the Brazil meeting, and several successful regional and national campaigns that are now working with the travel industry were presented in Florence. Travel industry ethics - Examples of codes of conduct introduced in Costa Rica, Kenya and several southeast Asian nations demonstrated that the private sector can be an effective partner in preventing child sex tourism. Theo Noten, Project Manager with ECPAT Netherlands, pointed out that many travel companies recognize the problem of sex tourism and are looking for the type of guidance that a code of conduct can offer. “They should not take up the role of the police, but they can do something to prevent travellers sexually exploiting children,” he said. “So the code of conduct is a means for the industry to do some real work on this.”
Contributed by Anuradha Bhattacharjee, 01 May 2008