LIKE an increasing number of visitors to Nepal, 26-year-old Marina Argeisa wanted to experience the latest must-do activity on the tourist trail: volunteering at an orphanage.

The Spaniard paid $480 to spend four weeks in a home. She did not know many of the children had living parents who had paid large sums to a broker to have them “educated” — and that by volunteering she was supporting an industry that exploits poor families and well-meaning foreigners.

“Once a child enters an orphanage, he or she seems to become the property of the orphanage owner ... [In effect], they become prisoners of the orphanage,” said Philip Holmes of the charity Freedom Matters. “[The owners] use the children as an income source, through the sponsorship of children who are presented as being orphans when they are not ... and through the exploitation of overseas volunteers.”

Campaigners say that in the worst cases, tourists may be unwittingly complicit in child trafficking.

‘There are many people living for six months in an orphanage and they don’t realise this, because these children are scared ... These houses are jails for these children.’

“Voluntourism” is rapidly expanding in Nepal, with dozens of agencies offering the chance to spend weeks, or months, at one of the 800 registered orphanages. Activists say there are also numerous unregistered homes.

But some of the homes are not all they seem. An investigation by Unicef, the UN’s children agency, found 85 per cent of children in the orphanages they visited had at least one living parent.

The trade in children begins in Nepal’s countryside, where parents are lured into sending their children to orphanages, often by the promise of an education. Lojung Sherpa sent three children to the Happy Home orphanage in the capital, Kathmandu, after she was told foreigners would educate them and raise money for one of her daughters, who has a serious medical condition. But some time later her daughter told her all donations towards her treatment had been taken by the orphanage owner.

Sherpa went to Kathmandu to remove her children from the home but was turned away. After an investigation, the orphanage owner was arrested on charges of child abduction and fraud. Her children, who were missing, were later found at locations across the city.

Dorota Nvotova, a Slovakian, began volunteering at Happy Home in 2008, and was so moved by the children’s plight that she found sponsors for them all. She raised about 150,000 Euros, but later discovered the real reason its owner was so eager for volunteers.

“It’s definitely about him making money,” she said. “Whenever volunteers came he always tried to impress them and then they started fundraising for him.”

Argeisa was volunteering at a different Kathmandu orphanage when a child told her she had been sexually abused by the owner. Argeisa reported the allegations to a children’s organisation, Action for Child Rights (ACR), and the owner was arrested on suspicion of attempted rape.

“The foreigners do not realise what is happening because they [the owners] are specialists in stopping people from seeing the dark side,” she said. “There are many people living for six months in an orphanage and they don’t realise this, because these children are scared ... These houses are jails for these children.”

This is not an exceptional case, says Jurgen Conings, of ACR, who has spent 10 years in Nepal investigating the nexus between foreigners, adoption agencies and orphanages.

“I’m 100 per cent sure the majority of these homes are built for reasons other than childcare,” he said. “Foreign volunteers give a home credibility ... and they pay to volunteer, so it’s a strong business model.”

Martin Punaks, of Next Generation Nepal, which reunites orphanage-trafficked children with their families, says voluntourism is a growing industry. “There is the potential for huge profits to be made for those who intentionally and unnecessarily displace children from their families so they can be used as lucrative poverty commodities to raise funds from well-intentioned but ill-informed tourists,” he said.

The government is struggling to cope.

“These children are a showpiece [for fundraising], but no one knows how much the owner gets and how much goes to the children,” said Tarak Dhital, executive director of the Central Child Welfare Board (CCWB), which regulates orphanages in Nepal. “We have introduced minimum standards for children’s homes and we need to strengthen our monitoring systems, but ... we lack financial and human resources.”

According to the CCWB’s latest report, 90pc of children’s homes failed to meet minimum operating standards.

Conings cautioned against the blanket condemnation of orphanages.

“A lot of good things are done; a lot of NGOs and social workers are doing an amazing job,” he said. “We would never say it’s not good [to volunteer], but we want to bring this to the public’s attention.”

—By arrangement with the Guardian

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2014