The elimination of child exploitation is a daunting task. But it is achievable if effective programs are put in place.
Child trafficking and exploitation are again in the news after the
Wall Street trader Jeffrey Epstein was charged on July 8 with sex
trafficking crimes involving dozens of minors.
Among the latest accusation is one by Jennifer Araoz, 32, who said
that Epstein raped her when she was 15, and she had been working at his
home giving him massages.
After the incident, Araoz became profoundly depressed, had anxiety
and panic attacks and had to drop out of school shortly afterward. Her
case is just one of the many cases being investigated against the New
York financial adviser.
Children’s trafficking and exploitation is a widespread phenomenon
that is causing enormous suffering throughout the world. It can take
several forms such as forced labor, sexual exploitation and child
begging, among other practices.
It is estimated that four million women and girls worldwide are
bought and sold each year either into marriage, prostitution or slavery.
Over one million children enter the sex trade every year. Although most
are girls, boys are also victims.
The extent of the problem
A report presented to the European Parliament showed that in Egypt
criminal gangs kidnap African migrants and subject them to the worst
kind of abuses — and reclaim steep ransoms from their families.
It is estimated that between 25,000 to 30,000 people were trafficked in the Sinai Peninsula between 2009 and 2013.
In the United States,
as many as 50,000 women and children from Asia, Latin America and
Eastern Europe are brought to the country and forced to work as servants
or prostitutes.
The U.S. government has prosecuted cases involving hundreds of
victims. In other countries where this problem is frequent, the
prosecution rate is lower.
Child sex tourism is an aspect of this worldwide phenomenon, and it
is concentrated in Asia and Central and South America. According to
UNICEF, 10,000 girls annually enter Thailand from neighboring countries
and end up as sex workers.
Thailand’s Health System Research Institute reports that children
make up 40% of those working in prostitution in Thailand. And between
5,000 and 7,000 Nepali girls are transported across the border to India
each year and end up in commercial sex work in Mumbai or New Delhi.
Commercial sexual exploitation
Although the greatest number of children forced to work as
prostitutes is in Asia, Eastern European children from countries such as
Russia, Poland, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic are
increasingly unwilling victims.
As a social and pathological phenomenon, prostitution involving
children does not show signs of abating. In many cases, not only
individual traffickers but also organized groups kidnap children and
sell them into prostitution, with border officials and police frequently
serving as accomplices.
Because of their often undocumented status, language deficiencies and
lack of legal protection, kidnapped children are particularly
vulnerable in the hands of smugglers or corrupt and heartless government
officials.
“Trafficking is a very real threat to millions of children around the
world, especially to those who have been driven from their homes and
communities without adequate protection,” said UNICEF Executive Director
Henrietta Fore.
Commercial sexual exploitation of children is a growing problem
worldwide. The reasons include increased trade across borders, poverty,
unemployment, low status of girls, lack of education (including sex
education) of children and their parents, inadequate legislation, poor
law enforcement and the eroticization of children by the media, a
phenomenon increasingly seen in industrialized countries.
Consequences of sexual exploitation of children
Social and cultural reasons force children into entering the sex
trade in different regions of the world. In many cases, children from
industrialized countries enter the sex trade because they are fleeing
abusive homes.
In countries of Eastern and Southern Africa, children who became
orphans as a result of AIDS frequently lack the protection of caregivers
and therefore become more vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation.
In South Asia, traditional practices that perpetuate the low status of women and girls in society fuel this problem.
Children exploited sexually are prone to sexually transmitted
infections, including HIV/AIDS. In addition, because of the conditions
in which they live, children can become malnourished, and develop
feelings of guilt, inadequacy and depression.
Besides the moral and ethical implications, the impact that sexual
exploitation has on children’s health and future development demand
urgent attention.
Throughout the world, many individuals and nongovernmental
organizations are working intensely for the protection of children’s
rights. Many times, their work puts them in conflict with governments
and powerful interest groups.
Policies to protect children
There is general agreement that a victim-centered human rights
approach is the best possible strategy to address this problem. Its
focus should be punishing the exploiter and protecting and
rehabilitating the child.
UNICEF has been particularly active in calling attention to
children’s exploitation and in addressing its root causes. This
organization provides economic support to families so that their
children will not be at risk of sexual exploitation, improves access to
education — particularly for girls — and is a strong advocate for
children’s rights.
The work of nongovernmental organizations and U.N. agencies should be complemented by governments’ actions.
Those actions should include preventing sexual exploitation through
social mobilization and awareness building, providing social services to
exploited children and their families and creating the legal framework
and resources for psychosocial counseling and for the appropriate
prosecution of perpetrators.
The elimination of children’s exploitation is a daunting task, but
one that is achievable if effective policies and programs are put in
place.
***César
Chelala is a global health consultant and contributing editor for The
Globalist. Since 1980, he has worked as a consultant on planning, monitoring
and evaluation of public health projects for several international agencies.
He has
conducted health-related missions in over 50 countries for USAID, UNICEF, WHO,
PAHO, UNFPA, UNDP, UNESCO, Capital Development Fund, the Guttmacher Institute,
the Mexican Foundation for Health, World Education, the Pew Charitable Trusts
and the Carnegie Corporation.
He
earned his medical degree in 1964. In 1971, he came to the United States and
worked as a researcher in molecular genetics and pharmacology at New York
City’s Public Health Research Institute and later at the New York University
School of Medicine.
He has
written scientific and medical articles for The Journal of the American Medical
Association, Lancet, Molecular and General Genetics, the British Medical
Journal and Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
In 1979,
he co-authored an article (with Paul H. Hoeffel) about the “disappeared” in
Argentina. The article, “Missing or Dead in Argentina: The Desperate Search for
Thousands of Abducted Victims,” was published as a cover story in The New York
Times Magazine. The authors received the 1979 Overseas Press Club of America
award for the best article on human rights.
He has
received two national journalism awards from ADEPA, the organization of
newspaper editors in Argentina. In 2015 he received the Chaski award from
Taller Latinoamericano, a leading cultural institution in the U.S., and that
same year he was awarded the Cedar of Lebanon Gold Medal from The House of
Lebanon, in Tucumán, Argentina.
He has
written for several newspapers around the world, among them: The New York
Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The China Daily, The Daily
News Egypt, The Japan Times, The Moscow Times, The News International
(Pakistan), Le Monde Diplomatique (France), Asahi Shimbun (Japan), Los Angeles
Times, The Miami Herald, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The
Seattle Times, Neue Zücher Zeitung, The Daily Star (Beirut), The Swiss Review
of World Affairs and The International Herald Tribune.