Project Childhood

Project Childhood is an initiative to combat illegal sexual activity involving children - mainly in the travel and tourism sectors - within the Greater Mekong subregion. The project is currently active in Lao PDR, Cambodia, Thailand and Viet Nam. Project Childhood is being implemented in two complementary pillars - the Protection Pillar, a partnership between UNODC and Interpol, and its sister arm, the Prevention Pillar, implemented by World Vision.

In coordination with the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression (June 4), World Vision’s Project Childhood – Prevention Pillar team released a report entitled, “Sex, Abuse and Childhood: A study about knowledge, attitudes and practices relating to child sexual abuse, including in travel and tourism, in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam" that, after interviewing more than 600 participants, found that most children and adults in Thailand, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), Cambodia and Vietnam understood child sexual abuse narrowly as the penetrative rape of girls. Other sexual acts (such as sexual touching or exposure to pornography) were not generally recognized as well as the sexual abuse of boys.