One of Polish leading hotel groups has signed the Code of Conduct for the protection of children from sexual exploitation

Yesterday (9th October 2012), first time in Poland, leading company of Polish hotel market signed the Code of Conduct which is an instrument of self-regulation and corporate social responsibility providing increased protection to children from sexual exploitation in travel and tourism. It is regarded as one of the world's major tools for combating child sex tourism and comprises a set of six criteria which travel and tourism companies follow in order to provide protection to vulnerable children in tourism destinations. Signatory companies must implement the six criteria according to a set of minimum standards, a timeframe and reporting requirements.


The criteria are:
1. To establish an ethical policy regarding commercial sexual exploitation of children;
2. To train the personnel in the country of origin and travel destinations;
3. To introduce a clause in contracts with suppliers, stating a common repudiation of commercial sexual exploitation of children;
4. To provide information to travellers by means of catalogues, brochures, in-flight films, ticket slips, homepages, etc.;
5. To provide information to local key persons at the destinations; and
6. To report annually.

The Code of Conduct was first developed by ECPAT Sweden in collaboration with Scandinavian tour operators and the WTO in 1998. The Code rapidly became a major ECPAT International network project, promoted and implemented in both tourist- sending and tourist-receiving countries. It was signed by more than 1000 organizations and companies from 43 countries.
In Poland, every year the Police identifies more than 5 000 children under 15 years of age who are victims of sexual abuse (under Article 200 of the Criminal Code) and up to a few hundred cases of minors abused in the prostitution business but it is only a tip of iceberg and still most cases remain unidentified.



Submitted by admin on Wed, 2012-10-10 10:08.