Ethical Tourism: DOIN IT RONG
Sep. 6th, 2009 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomikritzerMy Sunday paper carried an article reprinted from the Washington Post by a journalist who went to Thailand to see the Padaung. He'd seen pictures of Padaung women in National Geographic back when he was a kid, and very much wanted to go gawk see them in real life while he was in Thailand. The Padaung historically lived in Burma, but since Burma is run by an evil military dictatorship there are quite a few Padaung refugees in Thailand, and you can stare go look at them if you know where to go and whom to pay.
The journalist's name was Amit R. Paley. When Paley called one respected trekking company about traveling to see Padaung, they refused emphatically: "PLEASE DO NOT SUPPORT THIS VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS," they said in an e-mail. There are a couple of problems with treating the Padaung as a tourist attraction. First off, the rings themselves are a form of mutilation that is practiced solely on women; the elongated neck is an illusion created by crushing the collarbone. Second, as he was told by multiple trekking agencies, these so-called villages are exploitative and in many cases that Padaung are prisoners held there for the amusement of tourists -- human zoos, for real.
Multiple trekking agencies told him that they would not take him to visit the Padaung, which gives me some hope in humanity, frankly. Paley offered up some thin rationalizations for his desire toogle visit the Padaung: "Were tourists really being taken to see virtual prisoners? Or would I be able to sound the alarm if I saw real human rights violations? I concluded that if the villages really were so deplorable, my ability to write about them might ultimately help the Padaung more than harm them. I decided to go."
So, during his trip:
1. He meets a 28-year-old woman who is the sole member of her 300-person village who refuses to wear a traditional costume (which in her village involves rattan rings around the waist, rather than brass rings around the neck) because she finds it uncomfortable and old-fashioned; he observes his tour guide harrassing her and pressuring her to dress in the costume.
2. He arrives at the village of long-necked women, which is guarded by a booth with a man who charges $9/person for entry.
3. It looks nothing like a village; it's a collection of shacks with women and girls you can gawk at. No men. Paley tells you how awesomely breathtaking they are! and then asks them if they LIKE wearing 9 pounds of brass rings around their neck. An older woman tells him they tell him they do it as a show for the foreign tourists. He can't tell if she's joking.
4. Since he sees no guards (oh wait, other than the guy who took his $9), he concludes that no one would actually stop them from leaving.
5. They tell him that a man named U Dee, "the middleman," brought them there; some are paid to stay, but others are not.
6. They tell him they are not allowed to leave; if they try, immigration will be called; their only options are to stay or to pay U Dee for transport back to Burma; they do prefer being captives in a human zoo to living in Burma. (Let me take a moment to quote![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
probably_lost, back in 1995 when he was writing a paper on Ang San Suu Kyi. "The government there calls itself SLORC, for State Law and Order Restoration Council, which is the most up-front 'hi, we are an evil military junta!' name for a government I've ever heard!")
So, having determined that YES, in fact, these women and girls were brought here by a human trafficker and are held prisoner and forced to deform their bodies for the enjoyment of tourists, he asks himself again if it's unethical to visit them. I'll go ahead and quote him here, because it's ... it's ... it defies my ability to summarize, frankly.
"So is it unethical to visit the long-necked women? It is clearly true that money spent to visit them supports an artificial village from which they essentially cannot leave. On the other hand, many of them appeared to prefer living in virtual confinement as long as they are paid and safe, rather than living in a repressive country plagued by abject poverty and hunger."
Yes: according to Paley, supporting slavery with your tourist dollars is A-OK if the slaves escaped a country with a sufficiently horrid government!
~
This is not journalism. He did not interview any of these women in any sort of depth. He left a message for U Dee (which was not returned) -- he made no other effort to find out more about him. He made no effort to follow the money trail. He didn't ask these women if they had husbands, sons, brothers, or fathers living elsewhere in Thailand or in Burma. He didn't ask them much of anything, in fact. It's not clear if he even brought along an independent interpreter who could help him interview them, or if he had to rely on his guide to translate on both sides.
One of the comments at the Washington Post site notes that in fact, there are some strict limits on refugee movement in Thailand, so it may not in fact be the case that U Dee is keeping them in this village; he may be merely exploiting them, rather than enslaving them. As it happens, that's the sort of information I expect journalists to have in hand even before they arrive on the foreign trip they've talked their employer into financing (or that they're planning to write off).
Ethical tourism in developing nations often has a wide gray area; Paley was nowhere near it. He was told by multiple reputable organizations based in Thailand that the Padaung were being abused, and that by paying to go see them, he would be participating in the abuse; that's the first red flag, the sort of really clear message that at the very least is a good sign that you ought to do a bunch of reading about the situation of these people. You know, beyond that National Geographic that inspired your sexual fetish.
Then when he ignored them, went, and determined that the situation was every bit as awful as he'd heard, he still justified it, and did absolutely no substantive investigation or reporting that would have justified his $9 into the pockets of slavers.
And he still thinks what he did is OK.
Sickening.
The journalist's name was Amit R. Paley. When Paley called one respected trekking company about traveling to see Padaung, they refused emphatically: "PLEASE DO NOT SUPPORT THIS VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS," they said in an e-mail. There are a couple of problems with treating the Padaung as a tourist attraction. First off, the rings themselves are a form of mutilation that is practiced solely on women; the elongated neck is an illusion created by crushing the collarbone. Second, as he was told by multiple trekking agencies, these so-called villages are exploitative and in many cases that Padaung are prisoners held there for the amusement of tourists -- human zoos, for real.
Multiple trekking agencies told him that they would not take him to visit the Padaung, which gives me some hope in humanity, frankly. Paley offered up some thin rationalizations for his desire to
So, during his trip:
1. He meets a 28-year-old woman who is the sole member of her 300-person village who refuses to wear a traditional costume (which in her village involves rattan rings around the waist, rather than brass rings around the neck) because she finds it uncomfortable and old-fashioned; he observes his tour guide harrassing her and pressuring her to dress in the costume.
2. He arrives at the village of long-necked women, which is guarded by a booth with a man who charges $9/person for entry.
3. It looks nothing like a village; it's a collection of shacks with women and girls you can gawk at. No men. Paley tells you how awesomely breathtaking they are! and then asks them if they LIKE wearing 9 pounds of brass rings around their neck. An older woman tells him they tell him they do it as a show for the foreign tourists. He can't tell if she's joking.
4. Since he sees no guards (oh wait, other than the guy who took his $9), he concludes that no one would actually stop them from leaving.
5. They tell him that a man named U Dee, "the middleman," brought them there; some are paid to stay, but others are not.
6. They tell him they are not allowed to leave; if they try, immigration will be called; their only options are to stay or to pay U Dee for transport back to Burma; they do prefer being captives in a human zoo to living in Burma. (Let me take a moment to quote
probably_lost, back in 1995 when he was writing a paper on Ang San Suu Kyi. "The government there calls itself SLORC, for State Law and Order Restoration Council, which is the most up-front 'hi, we are an evil military junta!' name for a government I've ever heard!") So, having determined that YES, in fact, these women and girls were brought here by a human trafficker and are held prisoner and forced to deform their bodies for the enjoyment of tourists, he asks himself again if it's unethical to visit them. I'll go ahead and quote him here, because it's ... it's ... it defies my ability to summarize, frankly.
"So is it unethical to visit the long-necked women? It is clearly true that money spent to visit them supports an artificial village from which they essentially cannot leave. On the other hand, many of them appeared to prefer living in virtual confinement as long as they are paid and safe, rather than living in a repressive country plagued by abject poverty and hunger."
Yes: according to Paley, supporting slavery with your tourist dollars is A-OK if the slaves escaped a country with a sufficiently horrid government!
~
This is not journalism. He did not interview any of these women in any sort of depth. He left a message for U Dee (which was not returned) -- he made no other effort to find out more about him. He made no effort to follow the money trail. He didn't ask these women if they had husbands, sons, brothers, or fathers living elsewhere in Thailand or in Burma. He didn't ask them much of anything, in fact. It's not clear if he even brought along an independent interpreter who could help him interview them, or if he had to rely on his guide to translate on both sides.
One of the comments at the Washington Post site notes that in fact, there are some strict limits on refugee movement in Thailand, so it may not in fact be the case that U Dee is keeping them in this village; he may be merely exploiting them, rather than enslaving them. As it happens, that's the sort of information I expect journalists to have in hand even before they arrive on the foreign trip they've talked their employer into financing (or that they're planning to write off).
Ethical tourism in developing nations often has a wide gray area; Paley was nowhere near it. He was told by multiple reputable organizations based in Thailand that the Padaung were being abused, and that by paying to go see them, he would be participating in the abuse; that's the first red flag, the sort of really clear message that at the very least is a good sign that you ought to do a bunch of reading about the situation of these people. You know, beyond that National Geographic that inspired your sexual fetish.
Then when he ignored them, went, and determined that the situation was every bit as awful as he'd heard, he still justified it, and did absolutely no substantive investigation or reporting that would have justified his $9 into the pockets of slavers.
And he still thinks what he did is OK.
Sickening.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-09-06 07:54 pm (UTC)(I quit a job with a tour-planning agency in San Francisco several years ago partly because they wouldn't answer my questions about the ethics of some tours they provided that included visits to see what I guess must have been Padaung women.)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-06 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 04:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 02:16 pm (UTC)Incidentally, SLORC renamed themselves the "State Peace and Development Council" in 1997, which is a nicely Orwellian name for a military junta.