Gap-year students volunteering to help orphanages abroad could be unintentionally be aiding “child trafficking and sexual exploitation, a leading university has warned.
According to a report in The Sunday Telegraph, David Coles, charity coordinator at the London School of Economics, said “unqualified and ill-suited” students were being exploited by orphanages that operated “like a business” and used volunteers as a form of marketing. The families in countries popular with travellers were being persuaded to give up their children by being told they would do better in orphanages, he added.
The LSE has announced it will no longer promote orphanage placements amid concerns about their benefits. Scores of students from the UK head off to developing countries for a year out after receiving their A-level results every year.
Well, volunteering abroad to build schools or homes or doing post-tsunami work might make people feel good about themselves, but at times it can also be detrimental to those who are supposed to be helped.
