With the apocalypse tentatively out of the way, luckier earth-dwellers among us may soon be planning for a rapture of different sorts–you know, summer vacation and the ecstasy of being away from the office/classroom for a few weeks.
On the unlikely chance that my pretentious post crowning Southeast Asia the next tourist hotspot left an impression on anyone, some of you may even be skimming for a hotel somewhere along the Mekong in another tab of your window right this moment. If your priorities are anything like mine, your three main criteria for picking a hotel go something like this: 1. Does the hotel have WiFi? (No internet, no life); 2. Does it have air conditioning? (Southeast Asia = hot!); and 3. Can I afford to stay there for more than a night without busting my bank? (Student loans’ grace period ends in 6-9 months).
But here’s an additional criterion I’d like to suggest: Is the hotel ChildSafe?
In my last semester in university, one of my professors (shout out to the Zook man at UCB’s political science department!) brought to my class’s attention the non-governmental organization ChildSafe Network. Based in Southeast Asia, the organization collaborates with local communities and businesses to create a child-protection network. ChildSafe recognizes that local people often sense child abuse occurring within their communities, but lack concerted, cross-sector strategies to address the abuse. As the ChildSafe website highlights:
People are often faced with or witness a situation that can be harmful to a child. But too often, this person is either unable to recognize the risk or does not know how to respond. In some cases, poverty, fear, or survival needs, push a person to support child abuse (for example a taxi driver facilitating access to children for sex or a guesthouse receptionist looking away from potential abusive behaviors from clients).*
So, to combat the abuse, which can include anything from physical harm to trafficking to neglect, ChildSafe Network marries humanitarian initiatives to economic incentives. For hotels, this entails a local ChildSafe team going into hotels and training hotel staff on how to spot and handle potentially abusive situations. So, say a dubious-looking, aging foreign male–because unfortunately, sexual tourism clients in Southeast Asia tend to be dubious-looking, aging foreign males–with an under-aged child obviously not his own walks up to a hotel clerk asking for a room. The ChildSafe-trained clerk will decline the prospective client, keep watch on the child, alert the proper officials, and intervene as necessary. You can rest with reasonable assurance in a ChildSafe-approved hotel that your suite wasn’t the site of an insidious crime against humanity the previous.
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In return for their cooperation, ChildSafe certifies hotels and publicizes them within and beyond the network. As more travelers begin to realize that their short stays abroad have more than a transient impact, more travelers are choosing to book ChildSafe-certified hotels. More people going ChildSafe means more revenue for the certified hotels means more hotels wanting in the ChildSafe network. The network expands; children can live a little more securely.
In addition to hotels, ChildSafe also works with transportation services, internet cafes, tour agencies, local merchants, and entire village communities. You can easily spot a ChildSafe-certified business from their thumbs-up logo. If you’re nervous that hotels and other businesses might just get certification to maximize their profits and then relax their surveillance afterwards, you can find some comfort in knowing that “certification is followed by regular monitoring and adapted continuous training.”
- Hotel training in Phnomh Penh; Image from Friends-International
On a different note, do I think it’s kind of sad that well-meaning organizations often have to employ I-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine tactics to end child abuse and do I worry that sexual predators could eventually seek out more private spaces to conduct their reprehensible behavior, thereby making it harder to catch them? Yes and yes. But (skeptic alert) I’m pretty resigned to the fact that moral reasoning alone isn’t always going to get things done in the real world, so I feel like ChildSafe is engaging in an exciting and promising social enterprise. I believe in their mission, and I think they’re carrying it out the right way. And the little optimist in me still believes that many businesses probably do join ChildSafe Network for social action.
My second concern isn’t easily dissolved, but if we follow an economic line of thinking, we can hope that barriers to entry (i.e. reduced resources—in this case, easily accessible sites to service child prostitution) will squeeze out some suppliers (traffickers, pimps, facilitators), a number of sexual predators will be discouraged, and the market for sex tourism will shrink. ChildSafe’s strategy of economic incentivization can encourage fundamental shifts in behavior, reducing the number of child exploitation cases in the long run.
In any case, if you’re planning to enjoy Southeast Asia sometime before the world ends (my updated sources tell me to prepare my soul for October 21), why not do it the ethical way? Be ChildSafe.
*Bolding added
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Quick Links:
- ChildSafe does not yet have a local office in Vietnam, but some ChildSafe-certified tourist agencies that operate in Vietnam can be found here.
- A number of certified hotels can be found by browsing their “ChildSafe in the world” page.
- ChildSafe is managed by Friends International, which runs a blog here.
- The Friends International Facebook page and the ChildSafe Network Facebook page also provide additional resources.
- 7 usual tips for safe and smart traveling
See The Like Me’s, the first ever ChildSafe-certified rock band, get their certification!
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As always, if you know of more NGOs involved in ending human trafficking or sexual exploitation that you’d like to be featured, do let us know.
And now for a song that has little to do with this post other than that it’s called “The End of the World”, and that I like it. Happy Friday.
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