Increased awareness of child sex tourism is the best way for Laos to protect its children from becoming victims of this crime, according to an expert from an Australian NGO working in Laos.
Child Wise Tourism Programme Officer Ms Afrooz Kaviani Johnson yesterday met with representatives from the tourism industry to evaluate training conducted on the issue during the past three months.
“Tourism is growing a lot in Laos and unfortunately what we have seen in all Asean member countries is that as tourism grows, child sex tourism grows as well,” she said.
“That's why this training is so important as Laos is opening up its borders, to ensure people know how to protect children.”
Child Wise is an Australian non-government organisation which works to protect children from sexual exploitation in the Asia Pacific region by training those in the tourism industry. Child sex tourism usually refers to tourists travelling to a lesser developed country to engage in sexual acts with children.
Ms Johnson said the underground nature of the abuse meant it was hard to say how many children were being victimised.
“Some estimates say between one and two million children each year are abused in this way - but this is only the tip of the iceberg, there are probably a lot more,” she said.
“Tourism doesn't cause child sex tourism, but child sex tourists use a lot of the facilities provided by tourism to abuse children. For example, they use hotels and nightclubs, things like this.”
Ms Johnson said Asean countries faced the worst problem of child sex tourism in the world, although African and Eastern European countries were also affected by this crime to a lesser extent.
Poverty was one factor, but not the only one.
“There's a supply and there's a demand - often it's people's poverty, lack of education and desperation that cause children to be exploited in this way,” she said.
“It is not always because they are poor but often this is a contributing factor.”
Ms Johnson said the problem was growing, but awareness of it was growing as well.
“We work with tuk-tuk drivers, people who work in hotels, taxi drivers and tour guides and we teach them how to look for suspicious behaviour and how to protect children,” she said.
This type of training has been conducted by Child Wise in all 10 Asean member countries. The programme is funded by the Australian government and operates with support from tourism authorities and law enforcement in each country. The training in Laos was organised by the National Tourism Administration under the Child Wise tourism programme.
