Sunday, December 24, 2017

Mexico City’s Corruptour: Using Tourism To Teach About Corruption?



Originally dreamt up by a group of friends working for NGOs, is Mexico City’s Corruptour a good way to teach about corruption awareness? 

By; Ringo Bones 

The Corruptour probably gained exposure after representatives of the BBC joined the tour back in August 2017 and given the much-needed exposure of its existence, I now wonder why every major metropolitan city in the world doesn’t have its own version of this. In short it is a very effective – and educational way - to spread awareness about corruption, not just to Mexicans and the neighboring countries, but to every concerned citizen of the world as well. 

 The Corruptour was dreamt up by a group of friends working for NGOs. “Everyone knows about corruption but imagine it is a monster,” says Patricia de Obeso, an organizer. “We’re trying to break it down and explain how it’s done.” The tourists, a mix of Mexicans and visitors from elsewhere in Latin America, do not buy tickets, but are asked for donations. 

The Corruptour is not the only gimmick for drawing attention to a problem that is indeed a monster (on average, Mexican households spend 14-percent of their income to pay bribes and meet other corrupt demands). The Mexico City tour was inspired by a similar one in the north-eastern city of Monterrey. The “Mexican Corruptionary” – published in 2016 – offers definitions of 300 corruption-related terms. A góber covers up for policemen in the pay of organized crime; a hueso (bone) is a bribe paid to get a public-sector job that itself offers bribe-taking opportunities. In 1996, the word “corruption” appeared in 27 Mexican headlines, according to Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, a think-tank. By 2015, with newspapers reporting on police who had taken part in the massacre of 43 students and on allegations that the president’s wife had bought a house from a government contractor, the number of corruption related headlines had jumped to 3,500.