Sexual tourists abuse of the common channels and networks of tourism to reach their victims. Companies and workers in the sector – operating in the field – may play an important role in the prevention and struggle against this practice. To be able to do this, they must learn how to identify and prevent it, they need to possess the knowledge and skills to identify it and have the tools to actively prevent those who exploit and those that make use of this practice from making use of tourist services to reach their victims.
In December 2011, the European Parliament and Council adopted a directive (92/2011) inviting Member States and all social parts to enact concrete initiatives against sexual exploitation of minors. The Directive also mentions sexual exploitation of minors in the tourism sector.
With the aim of answering to the Commissions’ invitation, and at the same time favor the establishment of a permanent social dialogue platform for the discussion of sustainability and responsibility issues in the tourism sector, we have presented a funding request, that will allow us to enact useful actions that will bring the European social parts of the tourism supply chain to take responsibility in political and bargaining terms and act together against sexual exploitation of minors. With the help technical experts of the sector, they will learn – at all levels – new practical tools to stop these practices in the tourism sector.
The initiative was first thought by FILCAMS-CGIL, with the objective of sharing with Europe all the experiences and good practices that were developed in Italy (such as the fight for law 269/1998, the integration of the ECPAT code of conduct in the national sectoral collective contract, or the adoption of the only code of conduct in the word for Municipalities).
The European Commission has accepted the request for funding and has given us the authorization to start activities. The project will last 12 months, starting from December 2012.
