WOMENAID µ INTERNATIONAL

CHILD PROSTITUTION

Just after 9 pm, near the docks in the port city of Recife, Brazil, a girl of about 15 emerges from the shadows, half walking, half dancing towards a group of foreign sailors playing cards near the ship.  The contour of a condom shows from under her short, skin-tight dress.  Her eyes are red and glazed from the glue she inhales; her forearms are scarred from self-inflicted wounds.  As she approaches, the sailors eye each other and begin to follow her. 

'Three times exploited, three times empowered', by G Barker and F Knaul, UNICEF, 1994 

An estimated 1 million children are believed to enter the multibillion-dollar illegal sex market each year.  Many are coerced, kidnapped, sold, deceived or otherwise trafficked into enforced sexual encounters.  Some, like the young Brazilian girl above, may be pushed into prostitution by circumstances, as a way of surviving on the streets, helping to support their families, or to pay for clothes and goods.  Others are seduced by the bombardment of consumer images in the advertising media.  The circumstances and conditions may vary, but the commercial sexual exploitation - the selling of children for sex - is always illegal, always damaging to the child. 

Its dangers are multiple.  Children's sense of dignity, identify and self-esteem is undermined and their capacity for trust dulled.  Their physical and emotional health is put at risk, their rights violated and their futures jeopardised.  Painful injuries, disfigurement, and disease often await those forced, lured or coerced into sexual contact with adults. 

Children are robbed of their natural sexual development.  Violence, mistrust, shame and rejection can become norms, and the children may become dependent on their exploiters for emotional stability and support. 

Increasingly, children are sought out by sexual exploiters in the mistaken belief that they are less likely to be HIV-positive or even that sex with a child can cure the infection.  In reality, children are most vulnerable to HIV infection, being physically unready for sex and with little power to refuse unsafe sex or multiple clients. 

Although the prostitution of children occurs in nearly all societies, and is tacitly accepted if not at times protected by many layers of complicity, it remains an illegal and covert activity, making comprehensive and reliable data difficult to obtain.  It is known that most of the children are adolescents under 18 years of age and that girls are in the majority in most countries.  In some situations, usually related to tourism, boys are the target of exploiters. 

Poverty and economic injustice are common factors, and children from poor communities, where economic prospects or opportunities are bleak or non-existent, are most at risk.  Family or community members may knowingly sell the children to brothel agents or pimps or unwittingly sell them into prostitution in the mistaken belief that the go-between will find them work in a factory or as domestic help. 

But poverty is a contributing factor, not a cause.  Most poor people do not sell their children.  Poverty combined with a closing of options and a devalued image of the child as a chattel that can be sold in the market-place can increase the likelihood of sexual exploitation.  And the market-place stands ready with clients, traders, distribution routes, outlets and all the trappings of organised industry. 

Those who sexually exploit children are for the most part a country's ordinary citizens; the merchants, workers, businessmen and bureaucrats who do not know or may not care about the impact their actions have on children.  Another group of exploiters are the intermediaries and agents such as pimps, barkeepers and brothel owners, many of whom are women, who traffic in children.  Finally, there are the small number of paedophiles, who receive most of the media attention. 

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS 

The causes of commercial sexual exploitation of children are diverse.  Although it may be easy to place blame on criminal syndicates, to reduce exploiters to pimps and perverts to disparage the children themselves as promiscuous or sexually irresponsible, no social sector can escape responsibility for the sexual exploitation of children. 

The underlying causes are numerous, and include economic injustice and resulting disparities between rich and poor, large-scale migration and urbanisation, and family disintegration.  They also include cultural values that discriminate against girls and women and the deterioration of traditional support systems. 

Ignorance plays a role, and consumerism is a major factor.  The push to own, buy, rent - fuelled by advertising, magazines and the entertainment media - encourages those who do not value their children and respect their rights to simply trade them for something they want more.  In some parts of the world, children themselves, faced with the competition of peers and the desire to 'keep up', sell their bodies for the money to buy things they cannot otherwise afford.  They are exploited by circumstance and by a society that constantly tells them that possessions are more important than dignity. 

In the past 15 years, many developing countries have struggled with profound changes caused by poverty, wars and other political and economic crises, including structural adjustment, global trade patterns and heavy international debt burdens.  Communities have been displaced and destroyed, disparities have increased, and social and family relations have been at many levels. 

Poverty is deeper and more intractable now.  Although global income is at record levels - up to $23 trillion in 1992 from $4 trillion in 1952 - the share going to the poorest 20 per cent of the world's population fell from 2.3 per cent to 1.4 per cent over the same period.  In some developing countries, the average annual income of the wealthiest 20 per cent of the population is more than 25 times that of the poorest 20 per cent. 

Researchers attending a workshop in Pretoria, South Africa, on legal protection for children, noted that the hardships facing the poor in many African countries undergoing structural adjustment were linked to an increase in commercial sex on the continent.  Similarly, social, political and economic upheavals since the early 1992 in Central and Eastern Europe have caused an increase in economic disparities, which can be linked to the emergence of an estimated 100,000 children and young people living or working on the streets.  The money to be earned through prostitution is a strong attraction, especially when few or no other options exist. 

In Central and Eastern Europe, too, a backlash against the social restrictions of the former regime is also believed to have contributed to the growth in the numbers of young people involved in commercial sex.  "Sex is regarded as a new freedom, as well as a marketable commodity," says Helena Karlen, author of a recent study on Eastern Europe for the NGO coalition End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (ECPAT). 

The low status of girls and women in many countries and the related sexual abuse of children in families are critical precipitating factors.  Girls and women are especially vulnerable to family abuse and violence, including incest and total neglect, and are often viewed as commodities to be bought and sold. 

In Latin America, for example, researchers link the growth in street child prostitution not only to poverty and urbanisation but also to widespread violence against women and girls.  "Many of the girls who end up as child prostitutes have chosen a sexually exploitative life on the streets rather than suffer continued family violence and male incest in their own homes," says Dorianne Beyer, former director of Defence for Children International - USA. 

Finally, interwoven with all these factors are the effects of the dramatic surge in business travel and tourism.  International tourist arrivals alone totalled 567 million in 1995, a sevenfold increase since 1960.  Tourists and business travellers bring money into struggling economies that increasingly rely on tourism as their primary industry, and this is coupled with local acceptance or even promotion of sex with children.  Consequently, there is an increase in the number of tourists who come specifically in search of sexual contact, including contacts with children.  The result is that thriving sex industries have evolved in many popular tourist destinations and people whose livelihoods are linked to tourism, including bar and brothel owners, taxi and rickshaw drivers, guides and even parents, readily offer children to tourists for sex. 

THE NEXT STEPS 

While protection and support exist for children who are commercially sexually exploited, including legislation and rehabilitation programmes, the need for much broader awareness and greater political and financial commitments is critical. 

Legislation:  The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified as of mid-June 1996 by 187 countries commits States Parties to undertake a broad range of measures to ensure the rights of children to survival, development and protection, all of which are violated by commercial sexual exploiters.  Article 34 calls specifically for States to protect children from "unlawful sexual practices" and "exploitative use" in prostitution and pornography, and Article 35 for protection of children from abduction, sale or trafficking.  Ratifying countries are obliged to bring their national legislation and customary law into line with the Convention's provisions to protect children in all aspects of their health and development and especially from sexual exploitation and many are complying. 

In the Philippines, for example, the Special Protection of Children against Child Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act of 1992 requires government departments to formulate a programme to protect children against commercial sexual exploitation.  Sri Lanka's Government has amended its penal code and code of criminal procedure to raise the age of sexual consent from 12 to 16; and in April 1996, Thailand passed a Prostitution Prevention and Suppression Bill. 

A number of countries have also passed laws addressing the specific issue of sexual exploitation by sex tourists, Finland, Norway and Sweden, which have extra territoriality provisions dating from 1960s -in Norway's case from as early as 1902 - have now been joined by Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, the United States and Taiwan, which between 1993 and 19996 enacted new laws specifically aimed at combating sexual exploitation of children. 

As of mid-1996, laws were pending enactment in Canada and Ireland.  In Denmark, Iceland, Japan, Spain and Switzerland general laws of extra territoriality exist, which could be applied in cases of child exploitation by nationals overseas. 

Difficulties, however, remain in prosecuting cases with international dimensions, not least because of different languages and legal systems and problems associated with collecting and presenting evidence and bringing witnesses from abroad. 

The United Kingdom Government cited such reasons in not giving British courts extraterritorial jurisdiction.  In contrast, Australia and New Zealand have met this challenge by empowering their courts to take evidence by video link. 

Enforcement:  Changes in legislation are pointless without major improvements in enforcement, an important challenge confronting many nations.  Police efforts are a key element in ending the commercial sexual exploitation of children but the bribing of police to overlook child prostitution is common, as is the sexual exploitation of the children by those very people designated to protect them and uphold the law.  These attitudes on the part of legal authorities that trivialise the trauma and blame children who are forced into prostitution need to be changed. 

Special incentives, training and support, therefore, are urgently needed to bolster police efforts to end child prostitution.  In Nepal, for example, UNICEF is working closely with police in the area of prevention of prostitution, including outreach activities.  Other elements of the programme include rehabilitation of the children and awareness-raising.  In Peru, Save the Children and UNICEF are providing training to police in children's rights. 

NGOs have been monitoring the problem independently for many years, compiling much of the evidence needed for the prosecution of perpetrators - as demonstrated by recent cases in Cambodia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand and in numerous other instances where NGOs collaborate with police to facilitate an arrest. 

Of particular importance, too, given the transnational nature of much prostitution and trafficking of children, is cross-border and international co-operation among law enforcement agencies.  Interpol's Standing Working Party on Offences against Minors comprise members from 60 countries - double its membership in 1995 - and is a vital organ in the international fight to ensure stricter enforcement of existing laws, to share best practices in the training of law enforcement agents and to foster co-operation between national jurisdictions. 

Special protection: An added cruelty to exploited children is the fact that it is often children and not their exploiters who are arrested and treated as criminals when brothels are raided.  Children are often taken into custody, vulnerable to abuse in lock-ups, denied the right to speak in their defence and then deported or released into situations where they remain vulnerable to further exploitation.  Especially at risk are children trafficked from other countries because they are isolated by their language and culture and do not have legal papers.  These children need special legal provisions for their care or return to their home countries.  In Thailand, police are now dropping prostitution charges against children, although courts may still try them for violating immigration laws. 

Psycho-social rehabilitation:  Efforts are being made in this vital area to address the emotional impact of prostitution on children and to help them develop marketable skills and earn a living by alternative means.  The Young Women's Programme run by the International Catholic Migration Commission in Cambodia is one example of many NGO programmes that provide counselling and training in literacy, tailoring and other skills to children rescued from prostitution.  Still the success rate for these programmes remains low, because of the deep trauma caused to the children, the difficulties of reintegration them into welcoming communities, the serious health hazards they have faced and the cruel dependency that has been imposed upon them.  Much greater emphasis needs to be placed on working with families and communities to accept and support children who have been exploited. 

Education and awareness-raising:  Families and communities need to know the full extent and effects of commercial sexual exploitation if they are to protect their children and help reduce this grave abuse.  Many efforts are being made.  Members and supporters of the NGO coalition ECPAT, and other NGOs are highlighting problems such as AIDS that affect the communities directly.  The Daughters' Education Programme in Thailand, for example, brings together community leaders, religious figures and schoolteachers in weekly meetings to determine vulnerable families and help prevent the sale of children.  The programme, which also has an educational sponsorship scheme to keep girls in school, organises study tours to urban slums and red-light districts for girls to see what has happened to so many others.

To educate tourists about child prostitution, half-hour films on the subject are shown on Condor flights from Germany to Sri Lanka.  Taiwanese hotel associations have asked their members to prominently display anti-child-prostitution stickers in reception areas.  They also discipline members believed to permit child sex in their rooms.  Fodors and Lonely Planet, guidebook publishers, have produced material explaining the horrors of child prostitution, and national travel exhibitions have warned against child sex tourism.  UNICEF, ECPAT and other NGOs are actively involved in information campaigns and mobilising media, information providers and decision makers around the world. 

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