As you might know from my last blog, ECPAT, which stands for End Child Prostitution, Pornography, and Trafficking, is a network of organizations and individuals committed to ending the sexual exploitation of children and Global Exchange Reality Tours is honored to be a member. Why? Today it is estimated that there are one to two million children enslaved in the sex trade around the world, as many as 5,000 children are trafficked into the United States each year, and 25% of the child sex tourists around the world are from the US and Canada. Many times tourism companies inadvertently facilitate the sexual exploitation of children. Yet, in a recent survey conducted by ECPAT-USA the results showed that after ECPAT’s efforts were explained to those surveyed, most people stated that they would prefer to patronize companies that have policies addressing the sexual exploitation of children within the industry. At Global Exchange we know education is key to social change.
Reality Tours would now like to support one of ECPAT-USA’s projects, TassaTag. TassaTag is a special luggage tag that helps you claim your luggage more easily and is a visible voice against child sex tourism for the travel industry. TassaTag stands for Travelers Take Action Against Sex Slavery and Trafficking. It is big, bright, beautiful and fair trade. The TassaTag project raises funds (in the US) for the following:
•To Train people in the Travel Industry to take an active role against sex tourism.
•To Inform the public that sex with children is against the law everywhere, and if caught the person will be prosecuted and extradited to their home country, if necessary.
•To Mobilize congress against child sex tourism
We are proud to support TASSATAG and hope that you might consider purchasing one for luggage, family or friends!