World Travel Market, London
4 Nov 2019, 16.00 – 17.30 South Gallery 14

TRAVEL & TOURISM INDUSTRY TAKES A LEAD IN ENDING HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN

Description of the event

As the UNWTO has highlighted in the Framework Convention on Tourism Ethics, “the exploitation of human beings in any form, particularly sexual, especially when applied to children, conflicts with the fundamental aims of tourism and is the negation of tourism”.

Despite continuous efforts of the industry, as Travel & Tourism expands, the opportunities for traffickers and child sex offenders to commit crimes have increased, also due to technology and other new platforms. No country or child is immune to this ever-growing risk. States have taken important steps to build child-friendly hotlines and reporting mechanisms, but these methods need to be better known and more widely used.

Although there is increasing collaborative action, many victims remain unidentified. A new “culture of reporting” these crimes must be generated to increase the number of reported and prosecuted cases.

Representatives of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), Carlson, TUI GROUP, ECPAT and the IEG are coming together to launch the Don’t look away! reporting platform to become a global initiative, with the support of Grupo de Acción Regional de las Américas for the prevention of sexual exploitation of children in Travel & Tourism – GARA will bring in existing regional mechanisms and good practices.

The www.dontlookaway.report has been successfully used in 20 countries, involving the Travel & Tourism companies and reaching out to travellers and tourists, holidaymakers and others to encourage them to report anything suspicious they see whilst travelling; anything that may raise concerns of sexual exploitation or trafficking of children.

Key discussion questions: 

• What action is being taken by the travel and tourism industry to prevent human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children?
• What are the different options and most effective modalities across countries to report cases?
• Which cases have been successfully identified as a result of the reporting platform and how is it helpful as a preventive tool?
• How will this initiative expand globally and how can other countries, through forming multi-stakeholder partnerships, join the platform?

Agenda

16.00 –Opening and introduction– Robbert van den Berg, Executive Director, ECPAT International; Benjamín Liberoff, Subsecretario del Ministerio de Turismo de la República Oriental del Uruguay, Secretaría Ejecutiva del Grupo de Acción Regional de las Américas (GARA) and Rochelle Turner – VP Research, The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC)
16.15 – How is the travel and tourism sector taking the lead to end human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children? – Natalie Volin Lehr, Senior Director of Corporate Affairs, Carlson and Arantxa Garcia, Head of Sustainable Development, TUI GROUP
16.30 – What are the different and most effective modalities across countries that enable reporting of cases of human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children – Ludivine Piron, Project Coordinator, ECPAT France and Katherine Mulhern, Chief Executive Officer, ECPAT UK
16.45 – What are some of the successfully reported cases of trafficking and sexual exploitation of children and the preventive role of the platform – Dorothea Czarnecki, Vice-Chair on the Board of Trustees of ECPAT International and Theo Noten, Defence for Children – ECPAT The Netherlands
17.00 – How can we accomplish a global expansion of the reporting platform? – discussion with the contribution from ECPAT International, GARA, WTTC and Ann-Kristin Vervik, ECPAT Norway

Moderator: Katlijn Declercq, Focal point on European Institutions, ECPAT International, ECPAT Belgium

Note: The meeting will be held within the setting of WTM London. WTM has kindly offered to provide complimentary passes for the attendees. To access your pass, please confirm your attendance by sending your full name, surname and position to: gabrielak(at)ecpat.net. This RSVP needs to be sent by November 1^st in order to receive a link for the WTM registration page.

Background documents to the discussion:
• Comparison of European low-threshold reporting mechanisms, available here.
• The research report “Reluctance to report sexual exploitation of children related to travel and tourism” available here.
• The Global Study on the Sexual Exploitation of Children in Travel and Tourism, that was the result of inputs from 67 global partners, read the recommendations here.
• The Call for Action from the first International Summit on Child Protection in Travel and Tourism, read here.
• The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) – Human Trafficking Task Force, read more here.