2. Women and Tourism
• sex, sea, sand and sun concept in Tourism
• Tourism, is generally as victims, either in terms of sex
work
• Advertising which portrays them as sex objects
• Experience of women as hosts, entrepreneurs,
craftspeople, or even as observers of the tourist scene
• Attention has been paid to sex tourism
• The damage tourism has already done to women can
be mitigated
• Future development can be designed in a way that
includes women and their interests from the very
beginning
R'tist @ Tourism
3. • policy guidelines can be developed so that tourism
development can be as constructive for women as
possible, and
• women's experience in one community can be
conveyed to those in another, to help them make
better decisions.
• She earns, but at the price of her health, her self
respect, and the recognition usually available to
women in her society.
• The only decently paid work to which most women
have access is sex work, and it involves numerous
disadvantages.
R'tist @ Tourism
4. • Reformism will have little effect until women have real
occupational alternatives to the "quick buck" of
prostitution.
• Tourism represents the commodification not only of a
particular culture, but of women's role as nurturer and
caretaker, the all giving –taken to the extreme in sex
tourism, in which the woman's actual body is sold.
• women's having no other viable economic options as
being an outrage to their womanhood.
• The prostitution of women also represents the loss of
something private and sacred, for female reproductive
power was worshipped before anything else on earth.
• rural poverty which drove her into her job, or the system
which keeps her there.
R'tist @ Tourism
5. • What are the roles which the tourism industry creates
for women?
• What part are women playing in restraining tourism?
• What do women want from tourism?“ Are they
looking merely for income?
• To what extent are women shaping tourism, as policy
makers, managers, owners, guests, workers and
service providers?
– Each of these deserves a study of its own.
R'tist @ Tourism
6. • While women are probably a tiny minority in the
more powerful roles, the underside of the iceberg
gives it shape at least as much as the tip, and
women are all too well represented as
airhostesses, chambermaids, waitresses, and
other "invisible" occupations
• As guests, women are almost unstudied (Valene
Smith), even though there is ample evidence that
they are critical decision makers in travel
destinations, and have somewhat different
priorities than male tourists. While we know a lot
about male guest's fantasies of paradise, how
much do we know about women's?
R'tist @ Tourism
7. • How does tourism affect women in terms of
their daily lives and activities, their
opportunities for health and prosperity, and
their roles?
• How does it affect their status, both as their
own community sees them, and as women
striving for self-sufficiency worldwide might see
them?
• Thus far, it seems that tourism is a double-
edged sword for women, as it is for men;
• it both gives and takes.
R'tist @ Tourism
8. Child & Tourism
• The incidence of growing child abuse in South East
Asian countries is already ringing alarm bells among
critics of mass tourism in the early 80’s.
• growing links between tourism and the abuse of
children- in the forms of, sexual exploitation of
children, child pornography and trafficking and child
labour.
• policy makers, particularly tourism and child
protection, as well as the industry and local
communities in tourism destinations aim should be to
get rid tourism of child abuse.
R'tist @ Tourism
9. • In 1990, An early study in Palani Hills (Tamil
Nadu) made the links between pilgrimage
tourism and child prostitution.
• In 2008, Unholy Nexus which focussed on male
child abuse in Guruvayoor, Puri and Tirupati.
• In the intervening two decades however much
efforts have been made on the issue,
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10. • In 1989, Child Prostitution in the context of
Tourism, on Child Labour and Tourism, Bhopal
drew attention to the links between tourism
development in India and the exploitation of
children.
• Until then this was seen to be an issue plaguing
only SE Asian countries.
• “A contextual view of child prostitution in
India”
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11. • In 1991, the issue of child-sex tourism caught
media and government attention when six men
were accused of sexually abusing children at an
orphanage run by Freddy Peats in Goa.
• They hailed from countries such as Australia,
New Zealand and Germany.
• However, it took several years to break the myth
that child sexual abuse linked to tourism was a
phenomenon limited to Goa and isolated to
foreign tourists alone.
R'tist @ Tourism
12. • By 2000-01 - networking with civil society coalitions
and platforms, international organisations like ECPAT,
the National Commission for Women, UNICEF,
Department of Women and Child Development etc.
• In 2002 - “Coastal Sex Tourism and Gender”,
commissioned by the National Commission for Women
(NCW) focused on five sites (Kerala- Kovalam,
Karnataka – Uttara Kannada, Goa, Tamil Nadu-
Mamallapuram and Orissa-Puri).
– It established the prevalence of child sexual abuse and
prostitution in all these tourism destinations.
R'tist @ Tourism
13. • In 2003 - “Situational Analysis of Child Sex Tourism in
India” commissioned by ECPAT International reported a
rise in prostitution and trafficking in women and
children for the purposes of sex tourism and labour.
• In 2004, through involvement in a rescue operation of
trafficked children in a jewellery unit, guidelines for such
rescue and rehabilitation arising out of this experience.
• In 2004 “Towards Strengthening Rights of Minors and
Adolescents in Tourism” commissioned by UNIFEM - an
overview of the interventions and guidelines that would
protect minors and adolescents from exploitation in
tourism.
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14. • The Goa Children’s Act 2003 (and its amendments in 2006) was
the first time that tourism gained mention as a cause for child
exploitation.
• In 2006 the Ministry of Labour banned child labour as domestic
servants and in the hospitality industry & its implementation,
which unfortunately, has been far from effective.
• “Rights of the Child in the context of Tourism” has been in
demand from groups all over the country as it puts together
perspectives and information from various angles on the
exploitation of children
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15. • The process of reforming the Juvenile Justice Act 1986
initiated in 2000, contributed significantly in networking with
policy level groups on women and children’s issues, as well as
activists and organisations working on these issues.
• A continuing engagement with the Ministry of Women and
Child Development (MWCD), National Commission for
Protection of Child Rights, the Ministry of Labour, Ministry of
Tourism and the Planning Commission on various legislations
and protocols and policy initiatives that could ensure the
protection of children and the ensuring of their rights.
• The ‘Offences against Child’ Bill’ in 2005, Information
Technology Amendment Act 2006, and India’s commitments
on the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its optional
protocols have been areas of active advocacy and campaigns.
R'tist @ Tourism
16. • From 2005, End Child Prostitution, Child
Pornography, and Trafficking of Children for
Sexual Purpose (ECPAT) International, a network
of organisations and individuals working
together to eliminate the commercial sexual
exploitation of children and have collaborated
even more closely with ECPAT on the mission to
rid tourism of child exploitation, and indeed
seek a world where no child is exploited.
R'tist @ Tourism
