Orphans used as pawns for cash
WELL- MEANING Australians are inadvertently funding the exploitation of children in developing countries where unscrupulous operators promote an orphan “industry”, according to Save the Children’s submission to an inquiry into modern slavery.
Thousands of Australians, including university and secondary students travelling to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and other regions on “voluntourism”, are unwittingly supporting the growth of some orphanages that entice children who do have parents or other supporting family members into institutions to attract foreign funds.
“It’s a simple matter of supply and demand. As long as there are people who support these institutions financially through donations, or by visiting them as tourists, unscrupulous individuals will take advantage of the situation and exploit and traffic vulnerable children for financial gain,” Save the Children’s Karen Flanagan said.
Investigations by protection advocates, including Lumos, which was founded by author J.K. Rowling, have found instances where rogue orphanages have paid “child-finders” to recruit children into orphanages through deception, the promise of a better education, or coercion in order to receive overseas donations.
Research by Save the Child- ren in Indonesia has previously showed 500,000 Indonesian children were living in residential institutions called “Panti”, despite 90 per cent having at least one parent alive, 56 per cent with two parents and only 6 per cent assessed as genuine orphans.
“Orphanage tourism directly exploits children for monetary gain . . . forcing them to interact and play with visitors, interrupting formal education by allowing tourists to come at any time of the day, forcing them to perform cultural dances and exhibitions for donations and requiring them to beg to raise money for their care,” Ms Flanagan said.
Yesterday she told a public hearing in Melbourne, an inquiry into establishing a modern slavery Act in Australia, that more than eight million children lived in institutions globally but 80 per cent had parents or other family.
Ongoing institutionalised care of children, despite family support, is a breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which protects the right to live with parents unless it is unsafe or not in their best interests and to grow up in a family environment.
“Family based care is always the preference for children without parents,” Ms Flanagan said.
Save the Children, which is part of the Re-Think Orphanages network, is calling on the Federal Government to help end the growth of “orphanage tourism”.