The Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association (FHTA) has successfully concluded its two-month training on Child Safe Tourism and Respectful Workplaces in Nadi today for the staff of tourism industry businesses.
This joint training provided participants with tools to recognise and respond to situations that may increase the risk of child exploitation and abuse within their workspaces, as well as give them insight into the indicators and effects of domestic and sexual violence, workplace bullying and harassment and how to formulate an appropriate workplace policy to respond to this.
This training opportunity was facilitated in collaboration with the Australia Volunteers International (AVI) and International Finance Corporation (IFC) and was held at the Hilton Fiji Beach Resort and Spa.
FHTA welcomes Government’s imminent launch of a National Child Safeguarding Policy with the recently completed validation workshop with stakeholders in May supporting similar theming.
The Ministry for Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport (MCTTT) has also included child safe practice requirements in the National Tourism Code of Conduct that they are developing that would have an extensive set of guidelines that tourism businesses would be encouraged to adhere to.
This would then dictate child safe practices for all Government ministries and business partners as an indicative step for recognising the importance of having these included in workplace policies.
All successful participants from FHTA’s training will now be able to on-train their own colleagues to raise this critical awareness with the help of toolkits designed for this purpose.
The two pieces of training are being staged together because they will draw on similar approaches to recognising, responding to and reporting incidents as well as raising awareness on both issues through educating our staff and communities.
FHTA Chief Executive Officer Fantasha Lockington stressed the need to continually support the industry workers in furthering their scope of work and being the best possible versions of themselves by practising respectful and responsible work ethics.
FHTA is committed to promoting these practices and supporting members who mirror this commitment. They are looking to make this training an annual event to include more tourism operators and support staff to formulate and implement relevant new policies or review their existing policies in line with changing expectations for behaviour in the workplace.
