World Tourism Day, dedicated to an industry that helps people expand their horizons, and brings much needed money to areas that might not have many other means of getting it. However, there is also a dark side to the tourism industry. It has caused much harm, despite never intending to. Voluntourism is a perfect example of this.
People who decide to make visiting or volunteering in an ‘orphanage’ part of their holiday, generally do so with the best of intentions. They feel it is a way to do some good, to help disadvantaged children. They are unaware of the effects on the children of people constantly coming and going.
In a previous blog (HERE), and in a podcast (HERE) I have already made some mention of the effects on the children and of the misapprehensions about the benefits of volunteering in institutions. The serial abandonment that children in institutions are subjected to by volunteers coming and going has a serious negative impact on their self-esteem and on their development.
However, there is something worse than voluntourism, and that is the people, often tourists, but sometimes local people, who come for a little visit. I have seen this happen in many different institutions, in many different countries and I have hated it from my very first glance of it. In my head I tend to call the people who come for the visits ‘monkey watchers’.
Of course, I understand that these people come with good intentions, they think they are brightening the children’s day and they usually bring some treats. However, the reality is that these visits show no respect for the lives and the dignity of the children. Although there is no sex involved in the transaction, I cannot help but feel that in a way it is prostituting the children in order to get donations. The visitors do not come to see – from a respectful distance – how the children are living, they come to be entertained.
What I have seen happening again and again is with visits to baby institutions, that visitors (who have not washed their hands) go up to babies, pinch their cheeks and pick them up, regardless of whether the baby shows signs of distress at this. Very small children, playing on the floor find themselves towered over by large groups of strange adults, who are demanding their attention by calling or waving. In one case, I saw a lady luring over a nine-month-old baby, who she then wanted to give a hard boiled sweet – thankfully the caregiver was paying attention and put a stop to that, the baby might have choked to death.
In institutions for older children, I have seen large groups of visitors barging into dorm rooms – the only semi-private space that the children have – regardless of whether someone might be changing their clothes or napping in there. And again and again I have seen older children taken away from what they were doing – schoolwork, chores or play – to stand in front of a large group of strangers and perform in some way. They do not get asked, they get told to do it. When a child does not want to talk to the visitors and turns around and walks away, the visitor is often indignant: she came here to bring nice things for the children, the least they can do is be grateful to her. After the visit is over, the child will often have to face the consequences of ‘snubbing a visitor’.
Plus, as has been mentioned before more than once, it is the demand for places to visit by volunteers and tourists, that is at the root of the boom of the orphanage industry, leading to children being separated from their parents unnecessary, in order to make money. Money is not just made by the people running the institution, but also by the taxi and rikshaw drivers who get a commission for depositing tourists at an ‘orphanage’, by the volunteering organisation that places the voluntourist and by the airline companies that fly them there.
Tourism can bring a lot of good. But it needs to be done with careful thought, to make sure that it does not do more harm than good. And it always needs to be done with respect for the people that you go visit. Please, leave the ‘poor children’ out of your travel plans.
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