Brussels, 23/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - In the framework of its action to combat sexual tourism involving children, the European Commission is to finance a vast information campaign and, to that effect, is granting a 1 million euro subsidy to the World Tourism Organisation (WTO). This subsidy will finance activities over one year undertaken by four international organisations: ECPAT Sweden, TDH (Terre des Hommes), IFJ (International Federation of Journalists) and the WTO. The latter will coordinate and manage the project, which comprises activities covering information requirements in this field, and will include devising a comprehensive strategy to fight child sex tourism.
The project is more precisely aimed at intensifying this fight by: 1) obtaining reliable information on the incidence of child sex tourism world-wide and providing national tourism agencies with suggestions for concrete procedures to deter and fight it; 2) implementing the Code of Conduct for tour operators, committing them to take a firm stance against child sex tourism, and establishing monitoring and evaluation procedures; 3) publishing and disseminating strategy papers on the way child sex-related information is handled; 4) managing an internet web-tool against tourism-related sexual exploitation of children.
You may recall that the WTO is a world-wide tourism forum comprising 138 members, 10 of which EU Member States. In 1997, it created the "Child Prostitution and Tourism Watch" Task Force (CPTW), which includes tourism industry associations, public authorities and NGOs. The new project follows the line of the CPTW work and will enable the WTO and other organisations concerned to have a direct impact on tourist flows to child sex tourism resorts.