On 9-11 July, a train-the-trainers session as part of the “Offenders Beware!” project with the collaboration of five ECPAT member groups in Europe (ECPAT Austria, ECPAT Germany, ECPAT Italy, ECPAT Netherlands and the Tartu Child Support Centre in Estonia), was held at the Am Spiegeln Seminar Centre in Vienna. Twenty participants from seven European countries were taught a range of theoretical and practical training methodologies by the training moderators, Chris Beddoe (ECPAT UK) and Mechtild Maurer (ECPAT Germany). The ECPAT Programme Officer for Combating Child Sex tourism presented initial feedback and comments received from field use of the training resource kit, “Protecting Children from Sexual Exploitation in Tourism.” To download a copy of the resource kit, click here. For further information, please contact giorgiob@ecpat.net.

On 16-18 June, a regional course for the prevention of sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism was carried out in Ecuador. The course aimed to train people from the tourist sector to enable them to contribute to the prevention of sexual exploitation of children and adolescents in travel and tourism. The participants of the course included regional tourism authorities, private tourist sector and some NGOs. During the course, presentations were made on the Code of Conduct, including its advantages, clauses, subscription procedure and structure; examples of the Code implementation; commitments established by the Declaration of Rio de Janeiro for the combat of child-sex tourism; and cases of successful experiences and good practices from the private sector. ECPAT’s training toolkit on Child Safe Organisations was used for the presentations and given to all participants in a CD when the course was completed. For further information, contact marcos@ecpat.net.

On 16 June, ECPAT Italy held a training course at the Diplomatic Institute in Rome on combating and preventing sexual exploitation of children in tourism, targeting personnel from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that will be stationed in locations considered to be at risk of CST. The training programme included information on the national and international legal framework, tools to counteract this practice and what to do in case an Italian citizen is suspected of being involved in CST. Destinations of the 25 participants comprise Russia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Morocco, Albania, Poland, Senegal, Bulgaria, Sri Lanka, Cuba and Ethiopia. For further information, contact alessiaa@ecpat.net.

On 5 June, the Organisation for the Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism held an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) in Madrid as a follow-up to the Annual General Meeting in March. Chaired by the ECPAT Programme Officer for Combating CST, the 12 attendees along with the additional voting power of 19 proxies, reached the meeting’s goal of drafting new statutes. Working groups have been formed to finalise the text of the statutes, identify a suitable location for the Code headquarters and develop procedures for the selection and appointment of a General Manager. For further information, contact giorgiob@ecpat.net.

Following the regional course in Latin America, a regional working group meeting was held in Ecuador. The objective of the meeting was to review the accomplishments from countries in the region on the topic of prevention and combating CSEC in travel and tourism. Some of the findings of the meeting were that Colombia and Peru are in the process of preparing an online course to train tourism providers on CSEC. Colombia has also established a code of conduct law that includes some clauses of the Code, and the Colombian Parliament recently approved a law that gives a definition for CSEC perpetrators, which is an important step in the country’s legislation. For further information, contact marcos@ecpat.net.