The Cambodian family hopped out of their rental car and walked up to the charming, if rundown, school building in rural Scotland. Unpacking their cameras, they spotted a group of schoolchildren in the cute uniforms they had heard so much about, and approached the gates.
A few of the younger ones in the playground eyed them curiously, and smiled. The perfect shot for Instagram.
Is the above scenario absurd to you? Or even disturbing? In reality, alerted by the older children, a teacher would run out and ask what the family thought they were doing. The police might be called. Angry parents would ask why the school wasn’t doing more to protect their kids from strangers.
So let’s think about the reverse of this situation.
The French version of the online magazine Slate recently collated data to prove that tourists were much more likely to upload photos of children on popular travel website Routard.com if the country where they were taken was poor and African or Asian.
*The views of the above article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Africa Speaks 4 Africa or its editorial team.