The Marriott hotel group has revised its human rights policy
specifically to tackle the sexual exploitation of children on its
premises after shareholders filed a resolution on the subject and held
talks with the company.
The shareholders said they were concerned because more than two million
children are exploited in an organized way every year in many
countries, including Cambodia, India, Thailand and Vietnam. The
children forced into the trade have an average age of 14, but some are
only five years old.
The child sex trade is a multi-million-dollar industry involving tour guides, websites and brothel maps.
The shareholders’ action follows a case in 1999 in which a man was
jailed for eight years for aggravated pimping of minors in a child sex
tourism network that included receptionists at the San Jose Marriott in
Costa Rica.
Marriott is now in touch with non-governmental organizations in its
efforts to eliminate the trade. In its hotels the company is training
employees to recognize warning signs and is including a United Nations
brochure on the child sex trade in the 20 million pre-arrival messages
it sends to guests throughout the world every year. The policy is
overseen by a human rights task force of nine high-ranking executives.
Marriott was ‘extremely responsive’ after the resolution was filed,
said Lauren Compere, shareholder advocacy director of Boston Common
Asset Management, which took the action with the First Swedish National
Pension Fund. ‘The pension funds in Europe have a conventions-based
approach,’ she said. ‘They generally look at potential violators of
international codes and norms, and Marriott fit the bill because of the
Costa Rica case.’
David Batstone, author of Not for sale: the return of the global slave trade and how we can fight it,
welcomed the Marriott decision and said: ‘The reason I am enthused
about this corporate commitment is that most major hotel chains have
dragged their feet to make a public stand against sex trafficking –
it’s almost as if they are afraid to draw too much attention to the
crisis, and thereby be identified as a site of exploitation.
‘Their silence, however, is damning, as we will never offer serious
resistance to sex trafficking if the tourist industry does not get
involved in a major way. It’s that simple, and urgent.’
He pointed out, however: ‘Its weakness, on the other hand, is that it
does not set up clear channels for monitoring and reporting trafficking
abuses. It could go a step further to offer employee training in the
protocol for reporting sex trafficking first to the public justice
system.
‘Taken in isolation, corporate policies like the one that Marriott has
developed in partnership with NGOs will not deliver the total solution
to child slavery, but each advance in policy and public awareness
builds an environment wherein kidnapping children from their homes and
forcing them into heinous acts will not be tolerated.’
A broader campaign targeting travel and tourism companies is being
co-ordinated by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.
David Schilling, its human rights programme director, said: ‘Companies
do not want to see a resolution on their ballot that raises the issue
of child sexual exploitation because it is such an egregious violation
of children’s human rights.’
