Ending Orphanage Tourism for Good

“They would always say they were coming back, but they never came back.”

These are the words of Sinet Chan in her letter to the Australian government. As a child, Chan spent years in a Cambodian orphanage after losing both of her parents to HIV. Describing her experiences during her formative years there, Chan recounted being forced to entertain the constant stream of visitors from abroad by singing songs and playing games with them in order to encourage donations to the orphanage. “The volunteers were nice people, trying to help us,” Chan wrote, “But now I realise it was a form of exploitation, using us to generate funding.”

According to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, half of the orphanages in Cambodia are located in two cities—Phnom Penh and Siem Reap—which are both popular tourist destinations. While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily suspended the flow of tourists to orphanages, the practice of orphanage tourism must be brought to an end.

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund found that around the world, at least 2.7 million children are living in residential care institutions like orphanages. Even so, UNICEF has also acknowledged that this figure is likely an underestimate since it does not fully account for children living in private institutions. According to statistics published in 2018, around 8 million children were living in orphanages and other institutions, a figure comparable to the population of New York City at the time. 

https://harvardpolitics.com/ending-orphanage-tourism/