‘We have to make the tourists happy’; orphanage tourism in Siem Reap, Cambodia through the children’s own voices

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the lived experiences of children who interacted with tourists in a performance-based orphanage in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The orphanage was perceived by poor Cambodians as the only opportunity for their children to access food and education and a place to care for children when parents migrated for work. In recent years, however, orphanages in the majority world have come under increasing international pressure because many are associated with children’s rights abuses. As a result, the Cambodian Government committed to closing many orphanages and reintegrating 30 per cent of institutionalised children back into their family’s care. The children’s narratives were collected through child-focused participatory research. The findings provide a deeper understanding of the children’s lives, their aspirations and the extent to which the orphanage provided for their rights and human development. The findings are pertinent for other communities and organisations advocating children’s rights-based development and educational initiatives.

KEYWORDS:

• Siem Reap
• Cambodia
• orphanage tourism
• child-focused participatory research
• children’s rights
• child migration
• unfreedoms

Acknowledgements

Amanda Miller acknowledges Eam Ian and others who assisted the research process, the Australian Research Training Program (RTP) and USC for grants to support my PhD program and field work

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Pre COVID, Australia was one of the top three countries sending volunteers to orphanages (Howe-Ely 2018) and is promoted in the Australian education system with ‘57.5 per cent of universities and 14 per cent of secondary schools actively involved’ (van Doore 2016, 6).

2 The death of more than 90 per cent of artisans at the hands of the Khmer Rouge almost wiped out the traditional performing arts. NGOs have provided a mechanism for teaching and learning traditional music and dance (Grant 2017).

3 TripAdvisor recommended the orphanage dance performance as did the Facebook postings of many visitors.

4 ‘Cambodia has one of the worst deforestation rates in the world, and the country’s primary rainforest cover went from over 70 percent in 1970 to just three per cent in 2019’ (Thomas 2019:n.p.).

5 The Palermo Protocols were ratified by the UNHRC in 2000 in order to prevent, suppress and punish the crime of trafficking (UNHRC 2017).

6 The director and founder of this orphanage stated that ‘[n]inety per cent of our money comes from the show and subsequent ongoing donations from those that have visited’. It has also been reported of the same NGO, ‘not one of the 67 children at the centre is currently an orphan [and] in 2011, [the NGO] received a total of $247,508 in donations’ (reference omitted to protect NGO identity).

Additional information

Funding

Amanda Miller acknowledges and thanks the University of the Sunshine Coast for the Research Scholarship that supported the writing of this journal article.