CONCEPT SUMMARY FIVE (5):
Protecting Women and Children from Exploitation in Travel and Tourism

PROJECT SUMMARY AND EXPECTED OUTCOMES

Overall Goal

The overall goal is to contribute towards the protection of women and children against harm in the travel and tourism industry in Malawi

Specific Objectives and Expected Results

1. To generate data and evidence on the prevalence of women and child trafficking in travel and tourism industry in Malawi.
   
2. To advocate for a pacific policy on protection of women and children in travel and tourism sectors.
   
3. To encourage the travel and tourism industry in Malawi to enforce the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism in relation to protection of children.
   
4. To promote greater understanding and support of the role, functions and potential of the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in securing rights and freedom of children from harm and oppression.

Project Description

Child sex trafficking has all of the ingredients of a nightmare: putrid living conditions, torturous physical abuse, and a penetrating sense of powerlessness. And yet, it often begins as a promise of a dream fulfilled – a better life in the United States, or a job at a beauty salon in Thailand.

Each year, more than 1.2 million young boys and girls are trafficked around the world for the purposes of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation. The issue goes beyond national boundaries, affects both developed and developing countries, and relies on an international underground network of people either participating or willing to look the other way.

Recently, the Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) commissioned a research study specifically on trafficking in women and children in Malawi for the purpose of sexual exploitation, after noting that very little is known about women and child trafficking. According to the research report conducted by Centre for Social Research (CSR) of the University of Malawi, the objective of the study was to provide information that would lead to a fuller understanding of the magnitude and nature of women and child trafficking in the country.

The study, which was conducted in Blantyre, Salima, Lilongwe and Mangochi and sampled about 126 victims of trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation, found that there were between 500 and 1,500 women and children trafficked within Malawi annually. At least 30 percent of these were children aged between 14 and 18. It also found that victims were recruited from densely populated areas and trafficked from rural to urban areas.

However, one important area that was clearly not covered by the survey was the generation of data on women and child trafficking in travel and tourism. As tourism and international travel across the globe reaches unprecedented levels, so does the need to combat child labour and sexual exploitation in the global travel industry, without excluding Malawi. In the case of Malawi, tourism is now being given the greater prominence than ever before, as witness an economic shift from relying on tobacco as a forex earner to the tourism industry. Significant investments are being made into the industry. Yet virtually no one at all appears to talk, or care, about the possible risks such developments could bring in the context of human trafficking.

It is on this basis why the United Nations body for tourism is taking action now. A new awareness campaign from the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the International Task Force for the Protection of Children in Tourism is now seeking to raise the profile of children who are being exploited in travel and tourism. The campaign was formally launched at the World Travel Market 2008 at the 23rd meeting of the International Task Force (London, 10 November 2008, and globally on the Universal Children’s Day) 20 November through joint and coordinated efforts by all partners, participants, supporters. The UNWTO strongly believes that the tourism industry has a moral obligation and a special responsibility to combat child labour, sexual exploitation and trafficking of children.

The Child Rights Information and Documentation Centre (CRIDOC), on its part therefore, intends to join these international efforts by initiating a study that would sample key tourist spots in Malawi in order to generate some data and evidence on the prevalence of women and child trafficking in the tourism sector in Malawi.

The findings of the survey would then be used for advocacy and lobbying and provide a basis for project monitoring and evaluation. The advocacy may boarder on the following aspects:

(i) Tourism specific policies favouring the safety of women and children
(ii) Enforcement of the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism in relation to protection of women and children.

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