Chapter 2 describes the enabling environment in which orphanage trafficking occurs. It examines how the utility of the orphan child for aid and development is manipulated for the purpose of the orphanage-trafficking business model in order to profit from donor funding and orphanage tourism. It demonstrates how governments and non-governmental organisations utilise the orphan child as a focal point to increase aid and tourism, leading to a financial dependence on the orphan child. This utility is manipulated and exploited by both governments and non-government organisations to encourage what has been termed an ‘orphan addiction’. This chapter describes the political and social imperatives behind the creation, encouragement and maintenance of the orphan addiction, which in turn drives orphanage tourism and the production of paper orphans. The increasing demand for orphanage tourism creates a demand for the maintenance of an orphan population to visit and volunteer with, which is achieved through orphanage trafficking. Finally, this chapter explains the financial incentives of orphanage trafficking for developing nation governments.

The Conclusion draws together the major contributions that the monograph makes. It recognises orphanage trafficking intersects with child protection, tourism and development and argues for a comprehensive approach to the issue.

Chapter 4 situates the process of orphanage trafficking as a form of child trafficking under international law. The chapter applies the international framework on child trafficking to the process of orphanage trafficking including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. The chapter argues that the process of orphanage trafficking should be recognised as a form of child trafficking under the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime 2000. The definition of child trafficking has two elements: the act element and the purpose element. The chapter then turns to applying the definition of child trafficking found in article 3 of the Trafficking Protocol to the process of orphanage trafficking, establishing that the act element is present. It also demonstrates how the exploitation that paper orphans experience meets the purpose element of the child trafficking definition in the Trafficking Protocol.

Chapter 3 establishes orphanage tourism as a demand driver for orphanage trafficking. Orphanage tourism has increased in popularity in the last decade which, in combination with an enabling environment, has led to a proliferation of orphanages being established in developing states and the emergence of orphanage trafficking. The chapter examines the interrelationship between supply and demand in orphanage trafficking and argues that in order to understand how orphanage trafficking functions, a reconceptualisation of demand is required. Demand in trafficking is generally regarded as the embodiment of consumer desire, which may be illegal or at other times morally challenging. However, demand for orphanage tourism functions differently as it is not initially predicated on consumer desire, but instead on a perceived supply of orphans who require assistance. It is this perceived supply which orphanage tourism responds to. To address the demand of orphanage tourism, the perception of the supply of vulnerable orphans must be countered. Orphanage tourism needs to be addressed bilaterally as both a threat to child protection and as a demand driver for child trafficking into orphanages.

The introduction highlights the significance of this book. It provides a brief overview of orphanage trafficking and outlines the central arguments put forward.

Chapter 1 articulates the process of orphanage trafficking in developing states. It explains how the recruitment of a child into an orphanage occurs and describes how the process of orphanage trafficking manipulates the procedural aspects of gatekeeping into alternative care by claiming children are abandoned or orphaned rather than relinquished. This manipulation is critical in the orphanage-trafficking process as it indicates an intent by the involved orphanage operators to utilise the alternative care framework to justify the admission of children into care. The final part of the orphanage-trafficking process is the maintenance of the child in institutionalisation for the purpose of exploitation and profit through donor funding and orphanage tourism. The chapter then turns to establishing the prevalence of orphanage trafficking in developing states across the world. To do this, it focuses on four regions where there is evidence that the rising number of children in institutional care is in part due to the presence of donor funding and orphanage tourism: Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, South East Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.