Human rights
Since the revolution in Tunisia in January 2011, package tourism has recovered a bit. However, as Eveline Brändle-Ouertani reports, hotels, restaurants and traders are still suffering because many Europeans consider a trip to Tunisia rather unsafe. The economy, which the government had most...
Tourists travelling to Sri Lanka might unintentionally support businesses linked to war crimes and human rights violations. We asked Fred Carver, coordinator of the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, why travellers should take a closer look at who benefits from their holiday. The Sri Lanka...
Prior to the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM9) in Vientiane, Laos, in November, the 9th Asia-Europe People’s Forum (AEPF9) will be held from 16th to 19th October, 2012. The civil society event is about people’s solidarity against poverty and for sustainable development. In cooperation with partners...
Coastal communities and others in ecologically important areas are primary stakeholders of the eco-system. Mangroves, rain forests, and riparian forests are being destroyed at alarming rates.
Unless the local communities are partners in the protection and conservation of these areas, eco-...
The UN Committee on World Food Security has adopted "Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests".
The guidelines are meant to protect local populations against land grabbing. Big investors, including from the tourism sector, have increasingly...
In Arthungal, 30 km north of Alappuzha in Kerala, South India, the Kerala Independent Fishermen's Federation has been one of the most active local groups in the fight against tourism's expansion. Recently, they fought to help people regain access to a local church, which had been cut off by a new...
The Atacora region in the North West of Benin is of great natural beauty and one of the country's main tourist attractions. As Eva Maria Helm reports, people mainly live on subsistence agriculture, which is affected by drought and soil erosion.
Many people are illiterate and suffer from poverty...
The human rights related responsibilities of companies have been posing new challenges to the tourism industry. Peter-Mario Kubsch, CEO of Studiosus Reisen, summarises what Studiosus is doing and going to do in order to strengthen human rights in the company's operations.
(Bonn, 02.02.2012) As every year, Tourism Watch will participate in the International Tourism Convention in Berlin from March, 7th - 11th 2012.
Therefore, we already would like to announce our event during the ITB and would like to invite you: On Wednesday, 7th of March at 4pm, we will organise...
Tourism Concern, together with six NGOs, under them EED Tourism Watch and Ecumenical Coalition on Tourism (ECOT) have renewed calls for the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) to enable poor communities negatively affected by tourism to have a voice in UNWTO processes. This is vital if human...
By Christina Kamp. All actors in tourism have to honour their obligations under the international human rights framework. With reference to our study on human rights and tourism, published by the German Church Development Service (EED) earlier this year*, we asked Taleb Rifai, Secretary-General...
By Sumesh Mangalassery
The decision of UN Human Rights Council in Geneva (2010) that affirms water as a human right is a major success for civil society groups who have been fighting for community water rights for decades. It is considered to be historic and a big step in the right direction....
Human rights issues in tourism have not played an important role in the German parliament so far. Christoph Strässer, MP (SPD), points out that this might change, as this year the Bundestag is going to address business and human rights. At a panel discussion organised by EED Tourism Watch at the...
By Hans Ulrich Schudel (SST)
Just a week ago, we saw in the newspapers the photo of a young demonstrator in Tunisia. With both hands, she held up a poster saying something like: "We've had enough, we intervene!"
We are currently witnessing an unusual development. In various countries, in...
Corporate human rights policies and human rights impact assessments for tourism projects can contribute to preventing adverse impacts of tourism on human rights, according to experts at a panel discussion on tourism and human rights at the International Tourism Exchange (ITB) on 11th March, 2011,...
How can the media help to sustainably sharpen awareness of the universal validity of human rights? These and other challenges in the context of human rights will be the subject of this year's "Global Media Forum" organised by Deutsche Welle. It includes panel discussions and workshops,...
By Christina Kamp
Pacific islands countries are among the most vulnerable to climate change, which becomes a life and death issue in the Pacific. The impacts of climate change vary according to the geographical formation of each country. To find out how climate change is affecting people's lives...
The sexual exploitation of children is not inevitable. That was the message coming out of Rio de Janeiro where 137 governments met with children and youth representatives, international organizations, NGOs and private sector companies. As Mechtild Maurer reports, the Third World Congress against...
The ″Code of Conduct″ (CC) for the Protection of Children from Commercial Sexual Exploitation in Tourism has reached the tourism industry. It has so far been signed by nearly 1,000 companies and associations in 37 countries (March 2011). According to the child rights organisation ECPAT, it has thus...
"Fun Ships" are not fun for everyone, as Ulrich Delius shows in his article on the dark side of the cruise boom. The conditions under which the employees on a cruise ship have to work resemble the "sweatshops" of Asia. Long working hours, unpaid overtime, poor pay, mobbing - and the poorer the...
They carry more than the permitted maximum luggage, don't wear proper clothes, and in case of health problems, medical care is not guaranteed. The situation of porters at Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa, as described by Andrea Schirmer-Müller, leaves much to be desired. While the wages are not bad...
By Ernest Cañada
In recent years, the area including Southern Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean has become one of the world's main tourist destinations. One of the phenomena of 'touristification' is the massive mobilization of workers from different parts of the region for the...
By Linda Poppe
The Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) is situated in central Botswana. It was founded in 1961 in order to provide a home for Botswana's indigenous population and endemic wildlife. Since the mid 1990s, however, the government of Botswana has repeatedly been trying to evict the...
By Sumesh Mangalassery
The decision of UN Human Rights Council in Geneva (2010) that affirms water as a human right is a major success for civil society groups who have been fighting for community water rights for decades. It is considered to be historic and a big step in the right direction....
René Schärer presents examples of tourism resort developments in Brazil that have been blocked by popular movements and federal attorneys. He points out the positive side of the present financial crisis which may slow down the speculative fever. In the state of Ceará, resistance is well organized,...
The wildlife reserves of Kenya and Tanzania have become an integral part of the tourism product. While most of the visitors only use their cameras to "hunt" animals, a few wealthy trophy hunters pay huge amounts of money to shoot a buffalo, elephant or lion. As Ulrich Delius reports, the land which...
The Pacific island of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, made headlines in December 2010 when indigenous "squatters" were forcefully evicted from a hotel which they had been occupying in protest against the increasing influx of both immigrants and tourists. As Ulrich Delius reports, the...
T. Ravindran stays in a dilapidated single room thatched hut with his four member family, right on the sea shore. He is a traditional fisherman of Pozhikara, adjacent to Veli Tourist village in Kerala. When I asked him about the new walkway constructed for tourists, four feet high right in front...
By Giorgio Trucchi
Honduras keeps struggling with a severe economic, political and social crisis caused by the coup d'etat of June 2009. The new government has been promoting a strategy in order to "normalize" the situation. Resort tourism seems to be one of the most privileged sectors. The...
By Jinu Abraham and Christina Kamp
Since the 1960s, indigenous people have been displaced for the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam and related infrastructure along the Narmada River in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat und Maharashtra. Following resistance and an extremely...
By Christina Kamp
All actors in tourism have to honour their obligations under the international human rights framework. They have to contribute their part to fully respecting, protecting and fulfilling the human rights of people in tourist destinations, says EED Tourism Watch in a new study....
In a new report "Putting Tourism to Rights", the British campaigning organisation Tourism Concern demands action to end human rights violations in tourism. The report exposes the violations of human rights that occur as a direct result of tourism through an examination of key articles of the...
After five years of operation, Ecuador's controversial oil pipeline "Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados" (OCP) experienced its first oil spill. According to official sources, more than 14,000 barrel of crude oil polluted the Santa Rosa river, about 100 km east of the capital Quito. Other rivers further...
With 300 delegates, children and youth were strongly represented at the congress. TourismWatch interviewed Simona Blumkowski (20) who participated as a representative of the Child and Youth Advisory Committee. She emphasizes the comprehensive preparation process in different parts of the world...
By Christina Kamp
Pacific islands countries are among the most vulnerable to climate change, which becomes a life and death issue in the Pacific. The impacts of climate change vary according to the geographical formation of each country. To find out how climate change is affecting people's lives...
The uncovering of an illegal organ racket in a suburb of New Delhi earlier this year brought one of the dark sides of medical tourism to light. As Nikhila M. Vijay from India reports, the most lucrative clients of this racket were foreigners. The kingpin of the racket, Amit Kumar, and his...
In certain tourist areas in the Dominican Republic, child prostitution has become so rampant that hoteliers have recognised the need of taking action. Supported by the German Travel Association (DRV), ECPAT Germany and GTZ, a workshop in May 2006 at Puerto Plata had brought together entrepreneurs...
The ″Code of Conduct″ (CC) for the Protection of Children from Commercial Sexual Exploitation in Tourism has reached the tourism industry. It has so far been signed by more than 600 companies and associations in more than 23 countries. According to the child rights organisation ECPAT, it has thus...
By Brigitte Binder
This presentation by Sumesh Mangalassery (Kabani) and Christina Kamp, shows, how the local population is effected by the tourism-induced water sitution. (2006)
