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(Bliss, 2006; Noguchi, n.d.). Workers are forced to labour under debt bondage
or from the pressure of poverty.
Slavery, human trafficking and other forms of human exploitation in
tourism and other sectors clearly violate the principles of several international
human rights treaties and protocols. For instance, they violate the human
rights principles of Article 1 of the Slavery Convention (1926), Article 2 of the
Convention Concerning Forced Labour (1930), Articles 4, 23 and 24 of the
UNUDHR (1948), Article 8 of the ICCPR (1966), and Article 7 of the ICESCR
(1966), which together prohibit slavery practices, human exploitation, inhu-
man treatment at workplaces and forced or compulsory labour. Similarly,
human trafficking activities (especially those involving sexual exploitation)
also violate the human rights principles of Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention
for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the
Prostitution of Others (UN, 1949) as well as Articles 2(a) and 3 of the Protocol
to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women
and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Trans-
national Organized Crime (UN, 2000), which together prohibit human traf-
ficking and sexual exploitation of persons. As a corollary, the economic
exploitation (labour), sexual exploitation and trafficking of children also vio-
late the human rights principles enshrined in Principle 9 of the Declaration of
the Rights of the Child (UN, 1959), Articles 32, 34, 35 and 36 of the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989), Articles 1, 2 and
3 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on
the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (2000), as well
as Article 3 of the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999), which
together prohibit trafficking, economic and sexual exploitation of children.
As tourism keeps flourishing, so too has been the upsurge in cases of
human rights abuses involving people who make their living through this
socio-economic activity. Hence, if tourism is used as a tool for socio-economic
development, then governments and all interested parties involved must find
ways to address the human rights violations occurring within the tourism
sector. Although the tourism sector may be well noted for some of the afore-
mentioned cases, on the other hand, many of these cases also occur in other
sectors with very little or no connection with tourism.
Employment
Tourism employment is not always a form of slavery or exploitation.
Nevertheless, tourists and the tourism industry welcome lower prices, and
suppliers must make profits from their business by procuring cheap labour.
According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) Annual Review
Report on Travel and Tourism (2011a), tourism and travel provide direct and
indirect jobs to nearly 260 million people globally ( W TTC, 2011b). As one of
the world's largest employment sectors, tourism and travel is also bedevilled
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