Elemento Natural has a code of conduct to protect children and adolescents from sexual exploitation in travel and tourism:
1. We reject comercial sexual exploitation of children, adolescents and any other person in Costa Rica and anywhere in the world, particularly when related to tourism, being a conduct that is harmful to fundamental human rights and constitutes an antagonist activity from what tourism should be: an activity that fosters peace, human rights, mutual understanding, respect for all countries and cultures, and sustainable development.
2. We accuse and condemn anyone who uses tourism or its infrastructure and services to promote, facilitate or tolerate any type of sexual exploitation, in particular against children and youngsters; therefore we have established our Code of Conduct to protect children and adolescents from sexual exploitation in travel and tourism, containing the following:
Our responsiblities are:
1. We make public our ethical policy, clearly stating total rejection of commercial sexual exploitation of children or any other person.
2. We train our personnel so everybody knows, understands and lives per our code and common practices and policies our company has adopted in regards to sexual exploitation of children and youngsters; in that way, our employees will be able to handle properly any situation related with that topic, when executing their day-to-day duties. Our employees will then become preventive agents in protecting children.
3. We perform background checks on all of our employees and team members, to ensure there is no implicit risk in the day to day operation of our tours, especially with student groups and groups with minors or participants under the age of 18.
4. We’ll use external symbols so our customers and suppliers know about our position against sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, in all its possible ways
5. We’ll present an annual report to the Costarican Association of Toursim Professionals and the Costarican Association of Tourism Operators, copying Paniamor Foundation as the affiliated organization to ECPAT International in Costa Rica; such report will summarize all activities that our company has developed in that field.
