LATEST
NEWS FROM YOKOHAMA
Trafficked
Children Vulnerable to Sexual Exploitation
By
Suvendrini Kakuchi
YOKOHAMA, Japan, Dec 18 (IPS) - Nuri, a Bangladeshi girl faced
with grinding poverty at home, was eight years old when she
was trafficked to Pakistan by a man who promised her a job
.
ë'My family was poor and so I went with a man who promised to
find me a job. But I ended up in Pakistan where I realised I
was sold to a brothel,'' she is quoted as saying in a document
distributed here at the Second World Congress on Commercial
Sexual Exploitation of Children by the International Labour
Organisation (ILO).
For his part, 16-year-old Yasodaran is a Sri Lankan boy who
was forcibly recruited to work as a rebel soldier for the separatist
Tamil Tigers. As is typical of other victims, he is from a poor
family and illiterate, having left school when he was in the
sixth grade to work on a tea estate. ë'I tried to run away from
the training camp but the rebel group was vigilant and controlled
all my movements,'' said the young boy.
These two examples show two facets of child trafficking, which
can involve the recruitment and transportation of young people
within national borders or across countries, for stealing, begging,
domestic and farm work, marriages, illegal adoption and sex
work.
Often, children end up in one or a combination of these. ë'Exploitation
is often progressive: a child trafficked into one form of labour
might then be further abused in commercial sex,'' according
to an ILO report on trafficking.
During discussions here Tuesday, experts and activists pointed
out that trafficking has become more complicated over the years
š and highlight a kind of commercial sexual exploitation different
from child sex tourism, for instance. Dorothy McArthur of the
non-governmental group Save the Children says trafficking is
being given impetus by rapid and uneven urbanisation, migration
and racial and other forms of discrimination š against the backdrop
of globalisation. ë'These have contributed to the expansion
of the supply of child labour, and fuels demand for commercial
sexual exploitation,'' she said.
In addition, the growth of the sex industry and the advent of
new modes of transport have made it easier for pimps and mafia
to operate faster and easier across borders.
ë'Children provide the cheapest raw material. Trafficking them
needs no investments, and produce a lot of money to make yet
more money (for other trafficking activities),'' explained Panudda
Boonpala, senior programme officer for the ILO's International
Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC).
ë'The situation is getting worse,– said Panudda. By this, she
means the different forms of trafficking more than the numbers
of people trafficked, because estimates of those are difficult
to make.
Trafficked youngsters š who are often transported by organised
crime groups -- often find themselves in vulnerable situations.
For instance, domestic workers are at the mercy of single employers,
rarely have access to education and are sometimes forced to
provide sex as well.
In Africa, children are trafficked from rural to urban areas
within the country and outside of it, and trafficking for domestic
work is common among and between West African countries.
There are some 10,000 Nigerian women and children in the sex
trade in Italy, some of them as young as 12 years old, according
to a report by the first pan-African conference on trafficking
held in Abuja in February.
Margherita Amadeo, UNICEF communication officer for western
and central Africa, reports the trafficking of young girls from
the region for destinations in Europe -- Italy and United Kingdom
are two popular ones.
ILO's current estimates put the number of children in prostitution
in South Africa from 28,000 to 30,000, and about half of who
are between 15 years and 18 years.
UNICEF documents the flow of women and girls from Burma, Laos,
Vietnam and Cambodia into Thailand, while Thai girls are trafficked
for sex work to places like Japan and Singapore.
Japan is the largest market in Asia, with 150,000 mainly Asian
women in the sex trade. Indonesian girls are trafficked to Taiwan
and Hong Kong to provide cheap factory work and Filipino girls
are sent to Japan.
Some 200,000 sex workers are trafficked from Nepal to India
each year and 40,000 are below the age of 16 years.
UNICEF said that some 250,000 women and children in China are
victims of trafficking and 30 to 90 percent of the marriages
result from trafficking. The Chinese government is also battling
the trade in small boys who are bought by families for illegal
adoption because of a desire for sons, added a UNICEF report.
In response, some activists are lobbying to make trafficking
not only a transnational crime but one against humanity, saying
this can be argued under the statute for an International Criminal
Court. Participants at a workshop on human security said that
the trade in children should be seen not only as a criminal
act, but also as a violation of human rights.
Professor Kinhide Mushakoji of the International Movement Against
All Forms of Discrimination and Racism, an NGO working against
racial discrimination, pointed to weak political will by governments
and called for greater awareness in recipient countries on the
situation faced by trafficked children.
ë'Human security should be made a global issue and governments
must work together and with concerned NGOs to end the trade,''
he said. (END)
