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

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

Description of the event

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 [1].

Despite continuous efforts of the industry, as travel and tourism expands, the opportunities for traffickers and child sex offenders to commit crimes have increased. 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 and Tourism Council (WTTC), Carlson, TUI GROUP, ECPAT, and the IEG will come 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 and 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 and 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?

Speakers:

• Benjamín Liberoff, Subsecretario del Ministerio de Turismo de la República Oriental del Uruguay, Secretaría Ejecutiva del Grupo de Acción Regional de las Américas (GARA)
• Rochelle Turner, VP Research, The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC)
• Natalie Volin Lehr, Senior Director of Corporate Affairs, Carlson and Chair, of the Independent Experts Group on Child Protection in Travel and Tourism (IEG)
• Arantxa Garcia, Head of Sustainable Development, TUI GROUP
• Robbert van den Berg, Executive Director, ECPAT International
• Dorothea Czarnecki, Vice-Chair on the Board of Trustees of ECPAT International
• Theo Noten, Programme Manager, Defence for Children – ECPAT The Netherlands
• Ludivine Piron, Project Coordinator, ECPAT France

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

Agenda
16.00 – Opening by the representatives of ECPAT International, Grupo de Acción Regional  de las Américas (GARA) and 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
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, the WTTC and ECPAT Norway

Background documents to the discussion:
• Comparison of European low-threshold reporting mechanisms, 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.

[1] Art. 5.3 of the UNWTO Framework Convention on Tourism Ethics.