The ECPAT International network consists of 122 member organisations in 104 countries.[2] Its secretariat is based in Bangkok, Thailand, providing technical support to member groups, coordinating research, and managing international advocacy campaigns.
History
In 1990, researchers and activists helped to establish ECPAT (an acronym for End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism)[3] as a three-year campaign to end "sex tourism," with an initial focus on Asia.[4] As the terms "child prostitution" and "sex tourism" are no longer used in the sector, today the organization goes by its initials ECPAT.[5]Anti-Slavery International was one of the original supporters, and helped to set up a branch in the UK.[6]
In 1996, in partnership with UNICEF and the NGO Group for the Rights of the Child (now known as Child Rights Connect[7]), ECPAT International co-organised a global world congress against the sexual exploitation of children in Stockholm, Sweden. The congress was hosted by the Government of Sweden, which also played a major role in attracting support and participation from other governments. As a result, ECPAT grew from a regional campaign into a global non-governmental organization.[8]
Between 2009 and 2012, ECPAT, in partnership with The Body Shop, helped run the Stop Sex Trafficking of Children and Young People[9] campaign, which called on governments to safeguard the rights of children and adolescents to protect them from trafficking for sexual purposes. More than 7 million petition signatures were collected worldwide and presented to government officials around the world and to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Research and human rights reporting
States with one or more organizations that are connected to the ECPAT network
ECPAT group(s) in the state
None
ECPAT International produces a variety of research and resources for use by its network members, other NGOs, UN agencies, and researchers. These include regular country reports, regional reports and studies on specific forms of child sexual exploitation, such as the sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism,[10] and the online sexual exploitation of children.[11]
ECPAT is mandated to monitor the commitments of governments around the world and their legal obligations to protect children from sexual exploitation. ECPAT produces regular country monitoring reports[12] that are presented to the United Nations in Geneva, to follow up implementation of the Stockholm Agenda for Action (Stockholm, 1996).
Network membership
The ECPAT network currently consists of 104 member organisations in 93 countries. These include independent civil society organisations, grassroots NGOs and coalitions of NGOs focused on a range of child rights violations.
The Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism
The Code is a set of protocols that tourism operators may sign up to, in order to ensure that their businesses do not facilitate or encourage the sexual exploitation of children by travelers and tourists. The Code was developed by ECPAT Sweden in 1996 and is promoted through the international ECPAT network. Today, more than 350 tour operators, hotels, airlines and other travel businesses across 42 countries have become members, including some of the biggest tourism companies in the world.[13][14][15]
ECPAT-USA has been criticised for its lobbying for Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, which has been described by Vox as a law intended to "curb online sex work" while allegedly making consensual sex work less safe.[20] ECPAT-USA has claimed that at least 100,000 children in the U.S. are commercially sexually exploited, based on reports which used data from 1990 and which have been criticised by social scientists as inaccurate. The Washington Post claimed that the figure was "conjured out of thin air, based on old data from a largely discredited report."[21] ECPAT-USA attempted to justify their use of the figure by citing a NISMART report that claimed that there are 1.7 million child runaway incidents each year, and that their figure was conservative, despite the report stating that only 1,700 of the 1.7 million children were engaged in the sex trade, and that more than three-quarters of children were away from home for less than a week, leaving only a very small window for sex trafficking.[22] ECPAT-USA subsequently agreed "to stop using the figure".[21]
ECPAT-USA has responded to criticism against SESTA, describing legal sex workers as a "very small segment of society that enters sex work with their eyes wide open, and in the absence of coercion".[23] However, since the law came into effect, sex workers have suffered increasing threats of violence, harassment and pimping. Online communities which provide support to sex workers, such as finding shelter or food, issuing warnings about potentially violent clients and providing know-your-rights training, were shut down, putting sex workers in danger. In the past, authorities have used such platforms to track traffickers, and fear that closing them has driven traffickers underground.[24][25]
