As the tourist influx in Cambodia is likely to grow year on year, concerns are raising about making certain that tourism has just positive effect on local children.
Cambodia received 4.2 million tourists in 2013, an increase of 17% from the previous year.
To take benefit from this fast growing tourist arrivals, children may engage in earning wages on the road, making them principally exposed to violence and mistreatment.
World Vision Cambodia in partnership with the Ministry of Tourism has launched a new national Child Safe Tourism campaign to stop child sexual abuse in the tourism sector by enrolling responsible tourists to keep children safe from any abuse occurring in the first place.
This drive is part of an initiative by Australian Government called Project Childhood Prevention Pillar to prevent child sexual exploitation in tourism in the Mekong sub-region.
It is also being run in the adjacent nations of Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam.
The new campaign has created 120,000 labels, 10,000 tent cards and 36 signboards with Child Safe Tourism messages, which are being circulated in chief tourism sites through government, public and private associates working in the tourism sector.
Mr. Phang Chanda, Project Childhood Coordinator for World Vision Cambodia said a market study by World Vision last year performed with visitors coming to the Mekong province about their encounter with children showed that a lot of tourists wanted to aid helpless children but they were confused about what measures they could take and wanted additional information.
