13 The Distorted Reach to Local Stakeholders in the Global Fight Against Child Sex Tourism: The Case of Thailand, the Dominican Republic and The Gambia

Abstract

concepts: 'multi-stakeholder responsibility', and 'effective and affective reach'. Because of its global scope and complexity, no single partner can solve the problem of CST on its own, warranting the organisation of responsibility in a multi-stakeholder setting. This responsibility subsequently needs to be translated into action and commitment reaching out to the 'sites of crime', requiring both protocols (effective reach) and affinity (affective reach). Only once these are realised can the fight against CST be fully effective throughout the global tourism chain. Our core argument is that TCPC's limited impact can be attributed to what Allen (2016) describes as the 'distortion' of reach, effectively but notably affectively. To illustrate this distortion, we zoom in onto three cases: Thailand, the Dominican Republic and The Gambia.

Sex in Tourism

“…Since then MAIS has been funded for implementing the TCPC by many groups such as ECPAT Netherlands (since 2010), UNICEF (training on a project basis) and PLAN (since 2016), as well as tour operators (German in 2006−2007, Swiss in 2008and 2011and Canadian in 2009, and in cooperation with ACCOR (2012), and TUI and RIU hotels (since 2016). With the publicity this generated, MAIS became known as a best practise for the TCPC and was subject to a number of evaluations (de Man, 2010(de Man, , 2012(de Man, , 2015 Distortion of reach As a grassroots children's rights organisation, MAIS had always been very critical of government and industry, which they viewed as responsible for ignoring children's rights and protection. 12 It was, therefore, challenging for MAIS to reach out to their 'natural opponents' and enter into partnerships with them.…”