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A
Calcutta girl vulnerable to CSEC.
Photo
credit: Dario Mitidieri |
"We
have to actnow and we have to act forcefully.
We owe this to the children that have been abused,
tortured, and even killed by sex offenders and
to the children who are at risk of becoming victims.
This modern form of slavery has to be stopped!"
-
Queen Silvia of Sweeden
(presented
for use in our book on CSEC)
Commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC)
has prospered for centuries with little information
about the number of children involved and even
less public awareness. However, we now know there
are an estimated 2 million children that are commercially
sexually exploited every year, with as many as
300,000 of these children in the United States,
some of whom have been trafficked from other parts
of the world. This is no longer surprising to
many NGOs considering that the trafficking and
sale of people is now the third largest organized
crime industry (next to the sale of arms and drugs).[1]
The Declaration of the World Congress Against
Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (1996)
defines the practice in general:
“It (commercial sexual exploitation)
comprises sexual abuse by the adult and remuneration
in cash or kind to the child or a third person
or persons. The child is treated as a sexual object
and as a commercial object. The commercial sexual
exploitation of children constitutes a form of
coercion and violence against children and amounts
to forced labour and a contemporary form of slavery.”
There are three primary, interrelated forms of
commercial sexual exploitation that comprise the
sex trade: prostitution, pornography, and trafficking
for sexual purposes. The United Nations defines
child prostitution as: “the act of engaging
or offering the services of a child to perform
sexual acts for money or other consideration with
that person or any other person.”[2] Child
pornography consists of material representation
of children engaged in sexual acts, real or simulated,
intended for the sexual gratification of the user.
Sex trafficking is defined as “…a
pernicious form of slavery; it is the purchase
of a body for sexual gratification and/or financial
gain.”[3] Children who are victims of sex
trafficking are transported across borders or
within countries, across state lines, from city
to city, or from rural to urban centers.
Both boys and girls are victims of commercial
sexual exploitation, although the prostitution
of girls is far more prevalent in most countries.
Geographic areas where male-to-male prostitution
is more prominent include the United States ,
Western European countries, and Sri Lanka.[4]
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and
the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimate
that 2 million children are exploited in prostitution
or pornography every year. However, due to the
clandestine nature of the practice, lack of concrete
evidence, national embarrassment, varying methods
and terminologies of different countries, and
other situational factors, it is virtually impossible
to estimate how many other children are victims
of trafficking, prostitution, or pornography,
on a global scale.
Child sexual exploitation of children occurs on
every continent, except Antarctica, and is most
prevalent in countries stricken by poverty, political
turmoil, and corruption. In Cambodia , a nation
still recovering from the war, famine, and brutal
dictatorship of the 1970s and ‘80s, sex
tourism thrives. The prostitution of girls as
young as 5 years old is prevalent, particularly
with many tourists visiting Cambodia with the
specific purpose of having sex with prepubescent
girls.[5] However, the practice is not limited
to developing countries. For example, girls and
young women from many countries are trafficked
into the United States, often through Mexico,
to become sex slaves. Abducted, sold or abandoned
by family, or lured by hollow promises of jobs,
school, and a better life, girls and women find
themselves trapped, earning no money, and living
in highly restrictive settings with no personal
freedoms.[6]
Among the factors that increase children's risk
of entering the sex trade, extreme poverty that
either forces families to sell or give away their
children, or encourages children to voluntarily
leave their homes in search of a better life,
may be the principal catalyst. However, other
children who are vulnerable to commercial sexual
exploitation include those who suffer physical
or sexual abuse in their homes, come from families
involved in the sex trade, lack family support
and protection, have uncertain legal status, or
live near tourist destinations or military bases.
Research by the non-governmental organization
ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography
and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes)
suggests that in many tourist destinations, the
public, tourists, and law enforcement agencies
alike assume that more lenient laws and social
considerations apply, and thus child prostitution
is tolerated or goes unnoticed. Military bases,
historically breeding grounds for prostitution
due to the presence of large numbers of men separated
from their families and not living in normal societal
conditions, continue to play host to sex trade
businesses of adults and children.
Children suffer several physical and psychological
problems as a result of commercial sexual exploitation.
Physically, they are at even greater risk of contracting
diseases like STDs, HIV infection, and AIDS, because
they often have no control over choosing their
sex partners or forcing them to wear condoms.
Girls are also at risk of pregnancy. Many children
in the sex trade are also drug users. In some
cases, drug use is a result of children trying
to cope with the pain of their reality, while
other times pimps and madams drug children in
order to have greater control over them. Prostituted
children experience stigmatization, betrayal,
and powerlessness, all of which impede their chances
to escape the trade and successfully reintegrate
into society. People working with prostituted
children say that depression, disassociation of
emotions from memory, and post-traumatic stress
disorder are often exhibited by prostituted children
as a result of repeated trauma.
Adult men, both heterosexual and homosexual, are
the predominant customers of prostituted children.
There are preferential users who specifically
choose to have sex with children, among them people
who suffer from the psychiatric disorder, pedophilia.
Situational users on the other hand may not prefer
children, and have sex with adults, but will exploit
children sexually if they are conveniently available.
Youth and beauty are qualities considered desirable
by patrons of prostitution, and youth is correlated
with beauty worldwide; these standards allow the
market for commercial sexual exploitation to prosper.
Other factors that contribute to the prospering
sex trade of children include the fact that many
men value the experience of taking a girl's virginity,
feel they are less likely to contract disease
with a child, do not consider the children as
children because of the nature of their work,
as tourists carry racist or insensitive attitudes
about the culture of the country they are visiting,
and in some cultures people believe having sex
with a virgin will cure them of HIV/AIDS by passing
the disease to the child.
In addition to patrons of child prostitutes and
child pornography who fuel the industry with their
money, the other adults involved in the commercial
sexual exploitation of children are those who
earn money through supplying services. Prostitution,
pornography, and sex trafficking of children have
proven to be profitable businesses for pimps and
madams, the tourism and hospitality industries,
organized crime groups, pornographers, and, in
some cases, families.
Public awareness of the issue is growing as the
committed efforts of grassroots groups have led
to significant media coverage worldwide. The New
York Times published a series of four articles
in January 2004 about two girls in Cambodia working
in brothels. An article published on January 25,
2004 in the New York Times Magazine detailed sex
trafficking and the prostitution of girls in the
United States. Also, a special report was televised
in January 2004 by Dateline NBC, which went undercover
in Cambodia to expose the commercial sexual exploitation
of children. News groups in Latin America have
also publicized the high incidence of CSEC in
their respective regions, such as the online newspaper
El Tiempo that published an article on increasing
child prostitution in Colombia.
There has been progress in the legal arena as
well, with many international conventions that
provide protection for children who are exploited
in the commercial sex industry. Articles 34 and
35 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
calls for State Parties to take all actions necessary
to prevent a child from being forced to in engage
in unlawful sexual activity, and from exploitation
through prostitution, pornography, and/or trafficking.
The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the
Rights of the Child (CRC), adopted in 2000, addresses
the specific issue of the commercial sexual exploitation
of children. The Trafficking Victims Protection
Act and the Protect Act are among other pieces
of legislation that have also advanced the fight
against CSEC.
Several countries known to have a high number
of offending sex tourists have enacted legislation
that provides stiff penalties for those citizens
engaging foreign children in sexual activities.
The United States has made it a felony for U.S.
citizens or legal residents to travel to a foreign
country for the purpose of engaging in any sexual
act with a child. Greater law enforcement efforts
have been undertaken in several countries (although
much remains to be done), and some countries have
revised national laws that specifically recognize
children's rights to be protected from commercial
sexual exploitation. More public funds are being
committed to awareness and fighting child pornography
in several countries. Finally, many United Nations
agencies and local to international NGOs are implementing
prevention, rescue, and reintegration programs
in numerous countries.
Anyone who is concerned about this issue can help.
First, become informed on these issues and then
raise awareness by communicating to peers, colleagues,
friends, and your representatives about the need
to stop the commercial sexual exploitation of
children. Educators can introduce material about
the practice in their classrooms; journalists
can use the media to inform the public; business,
community and religious leaders can support children's
clubs or street shelters.
You can also make a difference by supporting organizations
like Youth Advocate Program International and
our partners in the fight against the commercial
sexual exploitation of children worldwide.
[1] U.S. Campaign
against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of
Children.
[2] World Health Organization, “Commercial
Sexual Exploitation of Children: The Health and
Psychosocial Dimensions,” (written for the
World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation
of Children, June 1996), 10.
[3] Women's Environment & Development Organization,
“Root Causes: A Gender Approach to Child
Sexual Exploitation,” (written about the
Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation
of Children, 1996), 25.
[4] Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children:
Youth Involved in Prostitution, Pornography &
Sex Trafficking , Youth Advocate Program International:
p. 10.
[5] Chris Hansen, “Children for Sale: Dateline
goes undercover with a human rights group to expose
sex trafficking in Cambodia,” MSNBC, [report
on-line]; available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4038249;
accessed 28 January 2004 .
[6] Peter Landesman, “The Girls Next Door,”
NYTimes Magazine, 25 January 2004, [article on-line];
available at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/magazine/25SEXTRAFFIC.html;
accessed 28 January 2004 .
Carol
Smolenski, Executive Director, ECPAT-USA
Joanne
Selinske, International Social Services (ISS)
© copyright - Youth
Advocate Program International 2003-04
Last updated 7/26/2004
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