Responsibletravel.com, a travel agent specialising in ‘responsible tourism’ has removed the orphanage voluntourism pages from its site while it tries to “clean up the sector”.
The company, which sends volunteers to destinations like Cambodia and West Africa, has stopped the experiences to open up a debate around the sector, according to managing director Justin Francis.
“It’s time to clean up this sector,” he explained. “Too often volunteer trips to orphanages are becoming part of the problem rather than part of the solution. After a great deal of thought, research and consultation we have taken the difficult decision to temporarily remove all volunteering trips to orphanages from responsibletravel.com whilst we work on a set of best practice guidelines for the sector.”
The company has highlighted some of the problems that orphanage voluntourism has created including the sector inadvertently fuelling demand for orphans. In Cambodia 74% of children in orphanages aren’t actually orphans. Poor parents believe that their children will be given a western upbringing if they live in an orphanage.
Siem Reap, a town of 100,000 people, has 35 orphanaqges.
“It is crucial that we only market volunteer trips in which we have100% trust. As a community of responsible operators, we must be committed to leading the way and raising standards in this industry.”
The company has started a debate on its blog and will be using the Twitter hashtag #orphanagevolunteering.
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