3.3 Research Setting

In the previous part I have shortly mentioned my decision to do this study within the setting of a specific NGO named �La Fundaci�n Paniamor�, an affiliate group of ECPAT International. I spent twelve weeks in Costa Rica, from January 2007-March 2007, and in this time I did my research. Whereas I collected all the information and contact details of the research participants through this NGO and was working almost on a daily basis for this NGO for these twelve weeks, it is necessary to elaborate on this organization and its background in the light of reflexivity issues, as this influenced my research in an important way.

The beginning of ECPAT International can be traced back to 1988, when a research project was launched by the Ecumenical Coalition on Third World Tourism (ECTWT) which aim was to uncover the facts with regard to child prostitution in three Asian countries: Thailand, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. In 1996 ECPAT changed its original name �End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism� to �End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking in Children for sexual purposes�, which reflected the broader mandate and geographic expansion of the organization (ECPAT International, 2007). ECPAT International (2007) expanded to:

�a network of organisations and individuals working together to eliminate the commercial sexual exploitation of children. It seeks to encourage the world community to ensure that children everywhere enjoy their fundamental rights free from all forms of commercial sexual exploitation�ECPAT has Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC)�The main thrust of ECPAT's work is to make a reality of the Agenda for Action adopted by 122 countries at the First World Congress against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Stockholm, Sweden in 1996�.

The Paniamor Foundation is an affiliate group of ECPAT International. This non-profit, nonpartisan, independent organization was created on September 9, 1987, declared a public Interest Organization for the aims of the state, on September 13, 1989 and is inscribed at the Public Registrar of Costa Rica. In 2004 the Costa Rican Ministry of Foreign Relations designated the Paniamor Foundation as the Institution of Good Practices for Horizontal

Cooperation. The Foundation consists of three departments: Administrative-Financial Coordination, Program Coordination and Evaluation/Research Coordination, all managed by the Administrative Team and its Executive Director (Paniamor Foundation, 2007A). The Paniamor Foundation (2007B) is characterized by its preventive and technical nature, providing training, information and research services to essential political and social actors in the area of family violence prevention, child abuse, development services to vulnerable adolescents and policy advocacy. The Paniamor Foundation (2007A) promotes social mobilization on the issue of adolescents� and children�s rights and operates according to the following mission, which was created in 1992:

�to achieve the fulfillment of the rights of minors in Costa Rica, through the development of social mobilization programs directed at fortifying them in the enjoyment of their rights and responsibilities; to prevent violence; and to promote the formulation of public policy and institutional practices that contribute to the advancement and fulfillment of these rights�.

In their daily operations and tasks, the Paniamor Foundation follows the following three guiding principles, in accordance with the driving values and the philosophy that frame the mission:

� Rights and Responsibilities Vision
� Gender-sensitive Vision
� Generational context Vision

Having discussed the background of the Paniamor Foundation, I will now turn to their activities. First of all it is important to mention that 20 years ago nobody talked about the issues in Costa Rica Paniamor is dealing with. Paniamor was the first to talk about these issues, and later on the state followed. Currently the Paniamor Foundation is divided into 3 programs: the Programa Prevenci�n de la Violencia (Violence Prevention Program), the Programa Desarollo Social (Social Development Program) and the Programa Incidencia Politica (Political Incidence Program). Each program has its own projects. In these programs and projects Paniamor works with all kinds of institutions and organizations, which are part of the child protection system in Costa Rica, such as the ministries of tourism, security, education and health, the �law�, as well as other NGO�s in Costa Rica. Furthermore, Paniamor also works, for example, with NGO�s in other countries in Latin America, the tourism industry, and even the EU and NGO�s in other countries in the world, which finance certain projects. It is also worth mentioning that the Paniamor Foundation is in a national commission against sexual exploitation of children called CONACOES [Comisi�n Nacional contra la Explotaci�n Sexual Comercial].

The three programs of the Paniamor Foundation are designed to �tackle distinct problems that significantly limit the observance of the fundamental rights of minors in Costa Rica today� (Paniamor Foundation, 2007A). As I volunteered and did research in the �Political Incidence� Program, mainly on the Code of Conduct Project I will now discuss this program in more detail. The Political Incidence Program was created in 1992 and promotes the social, legislative and political conditions that are necessary to progress in the mission of the Foundation (Paniamor Foundation, 2007A). It aims at changing national policies and practices, ideally turning it into a system characterized by a rights-based paradigm. To achieve this, the Paniamor Foundation goes to the congress to lobby with the Political Incidence Program, to provoke political discussions on the issue within the government. In this program, they work with many state institutions to strengthen population�s capacities. Now, for example, Paniamor is facing a trip to the commission of human rights, which is part of the Interamerican court of human rights, in order to make the court more aware of violence over children and the human rights of these children. Furthermore, the Paniamor Foundation has relationships with other countries in South and Latin America, for example to exchange information and to give advice, as long as finances allow this, two of my colleagues at Paniamor explained to me. The members of the Political Incidence Program are UNICRI, ECPAT, Ministry of Public Security, Office of Immigration and Extranjer�a, Fundecooperaci�n, Save the Children Sweden, ACOT, ACOPROT and World Vision Costa Rica.

Within the Political Incidence Program the following projects can be distinguished:

� Action Program against Trafficking of Minors for Sexual Purposes:
Currently the Paniamor Foundation is very much occupied with the issue on trafficking. The Action Program against Trafficking of Minors for Sexual Purposes in Costa Rica is initiated by the Paniamor Foundation and ECPAT International, with the support of the Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) and United Nations Interregional Crime and the financial backing of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Paniamor Foundation, 2007A). A brochure about the action program against trafficking in minors for sexual purposes in Costa Rica, Thailand and Ukraine is just been published in January 2007 (Paniamor Foundation et al., 2007). In this action program, as pointed out in the brochure, the following Costa Rican activities are mentioned:

- An information system to follow up on crimes relating to sexual exploitation of children and trafficking of children for sexual purposes within the judicial system in Costa Rica (SISCESCO). The system is designed for the �persecution of cases related to commercial sexual exploitation of children and trafficking of children for sexual purposes within the eight Public Prosecutors Offices specialized in sexual crimes and domestic violence� (Paniamor Foundation, 2007A).

- Training sessions for immigration personnel and border police on existing norms and procedures concerning cases of trafficking of minors for sexual purposes.

- Web page specializing in trafficking of children for sexual purposes and sexual tourism.

- Public information campaign on trafficking of children for sexual purposes. This aims at �sensitizing the public, in order to promote the fight against sexual exploitation of children, sex tourism and the trafficking of children for sexual purposes� (Paniamor Foundation, 2007).

The Paniamor Foundation is also training the prosecutors, to make them aware that trafficking is an organized crime and not a �normal� crime. Paniamor also started interviewing the victims of sexual exploitation. Furthermore, the Foundation created a manual on trafficking, which has been approved by the Integration system (for integration of countries in Central America). Now police and law enforcement in Central America are using this manual. The Paniamor Foundation is also producing a report on the current situation in the route of trafficking each year. This includes geographical mapping as well. This report is send to several stakeholders, such as the ministries, authorities and prosecutor offices, two of my colleagues at Paniamor told me.

� Sensitization and Training of Police and Administrative Staff Project:
In the past, the police used to participate in the commercial sexual exploitation of children or decided to ignore it. This project, which was founded by the European Union and has finished now, aimed at strengthening the capacities of police. Therefore, a special curriculum was created to train the police in this issue, two of my colleagues at Paniamor told me.

� Project against discrimination of children:
This project is carried out with help of a manual, two of my colleagues at Paniamor informed me.

� Support for Institutional Fortification in the Matter of Human Rights of Children and Adolescents:
This project �incorporates key government officials within the political and judicial sphere in the continual development of strategies aimed at protecting the fundamental rights of children and adolescents in general, and of vulnerable populations in particular. Specifically, the goal is to fortify these agents to act sensitively, effectively, and in a timely and appropriate manner, within their legal capacity and according to their institutional mandates� (Paniamor Foundation, 2007A).

� Information and Investigation Center for the Rights of Children and Adolescents (CIIDENA):
CIIDENA looks after the collecting and processing of specialized information on childhood and adolescence, in order to spread it strategically throughout Costa Rica and Central America. They �monitor national occurrences and document the status of the situation of children�s rights within the country and the region�Investigations serve to direct institutional action in providing feedback on social policy and institutional practice� (Paniamor Foundation, 2007A).

� The Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children and Adolescents from Commercial Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism:
It is obvious that this project is very much related to the Trafficking project, because the trafficking industry feeds the sex tourism industry. The Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children and Adolescents from Commercial Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism in Costa Rica, (from now on called The Code of Conduct), was started in August, 2003 and is a project of the tourist industry. This is in line with �the responsibility of the tourist sector to contribute to the improvement of the quality of life in the general population and the protection of the fundamental rights of childhood and adolescence in particular� (Paniamor Foundation, 2007A). It is worth mentioning that the standards of The Costa Rican Code of Conduct are adjusted from the international Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism. This International Code of Conduct is an initiative of the World Tourism Organization (WTO) and ECPAT International developed by the tourist destinations as well as the countries of origin. It �seeks the participation and promise of the tourist industry to disesteem and sanction the commercial sexual exploitation of children and adolescents associated with travel and tourism� (Paniamor Foundation, 2007C). The Paniamor Foundation has five partners in this Code of Conduct project, namely:

- ACOPROT (Asociaci�n Costarricense de Profesionales en Turismo)
- Save the Children Sweden
- ACOT (Asociacion Costarricense de Operadores de Turismo)
- Vision Mundial Costa Rica
- Fundecooperaci�n

Initially Fundecooperaci�n, a Dutch-Costa Rican cooperation, funded the project under its Sustainable Tourism Program. However, since 2004 the project operates with main funding from Save the Children Sweden and contributions from Vision Mundial Costa Rica. The Paniamor Foundation (2007A) argues that regarding the context, the Code of Conduct is inspired by the initiative sponsored by UNWTO and ECPAT, and developed in consistence with the rights of the child approach (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Art.19), and the sustainable and responsible tourism approach (UNWTO Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, Arts. 1,2, 10.).

Its implementation in Costa Rica, where the tourism industry is the main source of national income, is being influenced by hidden structural factors that affect the national capacity to recognize and face problems that question its model of development. The Code of Conduct was developed as a project of the national tourism industry represented by the Association of Tour Operators and the Association of Professionals in Tourism, in partnership with the civil society represented by Paniamor also acting as the coordinating agency. It has a national outreach and a special focus on the four regions of major tourist affluence. The project is private, what means that it is promoted as a self-regulation mechanism pertaining to the industry that seeks and celebrates the political goodwill of the related authorities, but is not conditioned by the granting of same.

According to two of my colleagues at Paniamor (personal communication, January 2007) the Costa Rican government, the ICT (Ministry of Tourism), initially denied the problem of commercial sexual exploitation of children and because of that the Paniamor Foundation did not work with the government from the start. However, these two colleagues argue that the tourist industry, on the other hand, did think it was important. They realized and realize Costa Rica is known as an ecotourism destination, which is not compatible with sex tourism. The two colleagues refer in this matter to the WTO who says that in one country it is not possible to have sustainable tourism and sex tourism at the same time. They continue by saying that the private sector understands it is bad for the image of the country to have sex tourism. When one has sex tourists and �normal� tourists in one establishment, a problem arises.

Hotels who have experienced this usually loose the family market, who on average are with four persons and stay one or two weeks, while sex tourists are alone or with two and stay only for a couple of days. Thus, the companies realized that in the long term they were loosing money, the two colleagues argue, and because of this the private sector was and is willing to be involved in the project and keep the image of Costa Rica as a sustainable tourism destination. The ministry watched these developments happening and as they saw the private sector willing to be involved, as well as because of external pressure, they decided to participate as well. However, the project continues to rely on the NGO�s efforts and the private tourism industry willingness to participate.

In order to adhere to the Code of Conduct a company has to comply with the following five steps:

1. Subscribe the Code at a public event. See Appendix II for an example of the Code:

- Prevent
- Report

2. Allow training of personnel:

- At all levels
- In working hours

3. Display external symbols (for the materials used in the campaign see Appendix III):

- In places visible to clients and providers
- To participate in the design and approval of the project�s communication material

4. Incorporate a clause in its contracts:

- With providers
- With affiliates

5. Present a public annual report on the compliance of the commitments resulting from the signing of the Code:

- At the Annual National Tourism Fair (EXPOTOUR)
- Represent the Code in the country and abroad, when so requested

To date around 5000 employees in 190 tourist companies have been trained and 100% of the national Chambers and Associations have subscribed to the Code of Conduct, such as CANATUR (the National Chamber of Tourism), CCH (Costa Rican Chamber of Hotels), CANAMET (National Chamber of Tourism Transportation), CANAECO (National Chamber of Ecotourism Associations and Businesses), ACAR (Costa Rican Association of Car Rentals and the United Taxi Association of the Airport. Furthermore the Code of Conduct is formally backed by the competent political institutions, such as the Costa Rican Tourism Institute, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Children Patronage.

Two campaigns have been launched thus far. The first was the 2004-2006 campaign launched in 2004 under the name �We mean it�, and was characterized by the following:

- Penal and Social Responsibility Approach.
- Follows the �Route of the Tourist�, from his/her arrival in the country.
- It is directed to the English-speaking foreign tourist who comes to the country with the intent of the disposition to participate in sex activities involving adolescents.
- Focus on the right to protection from SCEC of youngsters up to the age of 18.
- Incorporates the gender-sensitive perspective.
- Warns about the harmful and criminal nature of the activity.
- Rememorates the slogan of the 2004 Campaign launched by the U.S. Government (CHILD SEX TOURISM A GLOBAL PROBLEM).
- Speaks on behalf of the country.

The visible symbols that were included in this campaign ranged from poster and banners for the migration area and international airports, a stand-up in the rental car exit way and the main international airport, a plate for interiors for rent-a-cars and taxis-transports, to a desktop sign for the reception area and elevators in hotels.

The second campaign is the 2006-2007 campaign, using the strategic concept �Protected Areas� and displaying the following components:

- New set of external symbols for use by the Code signatories and political entities supporting the project, incorporating the Sustainable and Responsible Tourism Approach.
- Which follows the �Route of the Tourist�, from his/her departing country, is directed to the English-speaking foreign tourist, focuses on the adolescent population entitlement to legal protection of their rights and makes the case of the national will to protect the human rights of its new generation as the most valuable resource the nation has.
- Two products that give continuity to the Penal and Social Responsibility Approach, with target populations identified as strategic to the objectives of the project, as a result of recent findings: �potential clients� and �key potential informants�.

The visible symbols in this campaign included: the two products responding to the penal-social responsibility approach mentioned as one of the components of the campaign being TV-spots and radio-spots, a brochure, printed ad for tourism magazines and guides, desktop flyer for reception areas at hotels/travel agencies/airline counters/information counters at the main international airport, postcard to use as promotional material for major tour operators and at international tourism fairs, banner for websites of signatory companies and project partners and allies, stickers, promotional set for special events, billboards in the borders with Nicaragua and Panama and one in San Jose and ads on 14 buses in vulnerable areas in San Jose.

I would like to end this description of The Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children and Adolescents from Commercial Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism, the focus of my case study, by giving an outline of the main action lines for 2007:

- Expand The Code�s outreach:
With hotels and tour operators - Designing a Monitoring and Follow-up System for evaluating general performance.
- Setting the conditions necessary to move towards the institutionalization of the Code within the industry structure.
- Stimulate and accompany the development of similar processes in other countries.
- Lobby the inclusion of the protection of children and adolescents from SCEC, in the country�s recommendations to the international committee in charge of developing the ISO [International Standards Organization] for Sustainable Tourism.

With regard to the ISO norms mentioned in the last point, an international committee is now working on the creation of two ISO norms. There is one committee for creating ISO norms on Social Responsibility and one committee for creating norms on Tourism. Two of my colleagues at Paniamor point out that Paniamor wants to have the rights of the children included in the final document, so that the hotels have to show a certificate that they do not participate in sexually exploiting children, because at this moment, child protection is not part of the sustainable tourism policy.

Having finished the description of the last project within the Political Incidence Program, the focus of this research, it is worth elaborating on the thought behind this specific Code of Conduct Project of the Paniamor Foundation, which is derived from the International Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism. An important initiative in the fight against CSEC in travel and tourism are Codes of Conducts, from which, to my opinion, The Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism can be called a very important one. In the last couple of years many ethical codes of conducts have emerged, as a means for various branches and private companies to deal with possible critiques on their operations. The increasing interest in this voluntary measure, has mainly found place within the clothing industry, as Levi Strauss, for example, was one of the first to invent its own Code of Conduct (Tepelus, 2006). She also gives some examples of ethical Code of Conducts, in which the protection of children in tourism is included, as for example in The UNWTO Global Code of Ethics for Tourism.

This Code approaches economic, social and environmental issues from an ethical perspective. It looks at the responsibilities of all the social actors involved in tourism development and activities. One can find the issue of the commercial sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism in Article 2, point 3 of this Code, which says the following: �The exploitation of human beings in any form, particularly sexual, especially when applied to children, conflicts with the fundamental aims of tourism and is the negation of tourism: as such, in accordance with international law, it should be energetically combated with the cooperation of all the States concerned and penalized without concession by the national legislation of both the countries visited and the countries of the perpetrators of these acts, even when they are carried out abroad�(Tepelus, 2006: 7). A second example is the Social Accountability 8000, a �global standard for ethical aspects of companies� activities (including tourism activities)� (Tepelus, 2006: 7). It was developed by the Council on Economic Priorities Accreditation Agency and is �based on ILO (International Labour Organization) conventions, the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child� (Tepelus, 2006: 7).

Amongst other things the standard will guarantee protection against forced and child labor. The Social Accountability 8000 has anindependent control authority. A third example is the Green Globe Certification, which is an environmental program with certification rights and is created by the World Travel and Tourism Council for tourism destinations and tourism and travel companies. The program is based on Agenda 21, mentioned in the sustainable development paragraph. Having explained the emergence of ethical codes of conduct, also with regard to the commercial sexual exploitation of children, I will now return to the Code of Conduct, which is of particular importance in the fight against CSEC in travel and tourism, namely the Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism, as elaborated upon by Tepelus (2006). ECPAT Sweden started the Code in April 1998 in cooperation with the World Tourism Organization (WTO) and Scandinavian tour operators.

In the beginning the Code was only aiming at tour operators, but in the last couple of years also other sectors of the tourism industry, such as hotels, airlines, transportation companies and travel agents, started to become involved. The Code has been expanded as an ECPAT network project since the year 2000 and is being funded by the European Commission. The European ECPAT partners provide contributions and the WTO and the tourism industry provide the logistic support. The members of the Code are �signatory companies from the tourism private sector, national partners supporting the implementation and monitoring processes, and the member organizations of the Steering and Executive Committees� (Tepelus, 2006: II). After the commencement of the Code in April 2004 in North America, the code was registered as an international non-profit organization in Sweden led �by a multi-stakeholder Steering Committee, with the Secretariat based in New York housed at ECPAT USA, funded by Unicef and supported by the World Tourism Organization� (Tepelus, 2006: II).

The members of this Steering Committee 2005-2007 of the Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism can be found in Appendix IV. When a company supports the Code, the company makes a commitment to implement the six criteria to prevent sexual exploitation of children. For one of those criteria, �Education and training of personnel�, Tepelus (2006) gives some suggestions for steps to follow for an internal staff training. Furthermore she gives a link to the website where one can purchase a comprehensive training program, which can be used as supporting material. The Code of Conduct Annual Meeting in March 2006 took on a standardized procedure to be used in all countries for the Code implementation. The steps in this procedure can be found in Appendix V.

The Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism currently is being implemented globally �by over 240 tour operators, hotels, travel agents and their associations, tourism workers� unions from 21 countries in Europe, Asia, North America, Central and Latin America. The number of tourists impacted by the Code is estimated to reach over 30 million per year, traveling to destinations in over 16 countries worldwide� (Tepelus, 2006: II). In December 2003 British Airways awarded the Code a �Tourism for Tomorrow Award in the Large Scale Tourism category�. The World Tourism Organization and UNICEF regard the Code as the �primary international tool for the prevention and combating of child sex tourism by the travel and tourism private sector� (Tepelus, 2006:II).

Furthermore Tepelus (2006: 12) points out the following about the Code of Conduct: �Sexual exploitation of children is a difficult issue, but it is important to remember that the adoption of the Code is a positive action, which demonstrates the overall commitment of the company to carry out a socially responsible business. By signing up to the Code a company actively contributes to protect children from commercial sexual exploitation. The participant staff will feel pride of being engaged in this work, as well as pride for belonging to a company which dedicates time and money to such a worthwhile cause�. Tepelus (2006) stresses that in order to ensure the credibility of Codes of Conducts and of the companies adopting these codes, as seen from experience, one has to control and follow up the implementation of such a code, both externally by independent evaluators and internally by the company.