Staff in hotels, cyber cafes have been asked to alert police if they find guests keeping child porn material.
The government will crack down on the tourism industry if they don’t stop visitors from bringing children into their hotel rooms for sex or watching child pornography on the Internet.
The Centre has sent hotel owners and tour operators a set of guidelines and a code of conduct to prevent the sexual exploitation of children by guests. This means the tourism ministry not only wants all hotels and cyber cafes to keep an eye on what people watch on the Internet but also deny them access to child pornography content on websites and television.
The code forbids tourists from seeking out children for sex via chat rooms, discussions groups etc. Staff in hotels and cyber cafes at all tourist spots have been asked to alert local police if they find child pornography material on guests.
Hotels have also been asked not to ‘help’ tourists get access to children for sex or employ minors in their industry, Union tourism secretary Sujit Banerjee said. If hotels and tour operators do not abide by the rules, they will lose their license and face penal action.
Moreover, the government has told tour operators to brief their customers in advance about the new norms to prevent sexual exploitation of children. As part of this, airlines have been asked to run an awareness campaign through its in-flight magazines, ticket jackets, Internet links and video on long-haul flights.
India is not the only country formulating such rules. Similar codes were to be enforced by all countries who expressed their commitment to stop the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents in the 2008 World Congress (in Rio de Janeiro) .
Experts say that child sex tourism is rising sharply in India, not just in tourist havens but also in religious hubs in Tamil Nadu and Orissa. India has been identified as a source, transit point and destination for child trafficking in the international circuit. A large number of children are also trafficked within the country.
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