LATEST
NEWS FROM YOKOHAMA
Consensus
on Fighting Child Sex Exploitation Grows Wider
By
Johanna Son
YOKOHAMA, Japan, Dec 20 (IPS) - Governments,
activists and young
people on Thursday widened the international
consensus on fighting
the sexual exploitation of children, by reaffirming
their commitment
to ''all forms'' of the problem at the close of a
world congress
here .
Unlike other big conferences, the Second World Congress against
the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children was not a negotiating
summit. Instead, its 3,045 participants adopted by consensus
a ''global commitment'' that goes further than the issues tackled
at the first congress five years ago.
''We reaffirm, as our primary considerations, the protection
and promotion of the interests and the rights of the child to
be protected against all forms of sexual exploitation,'' said
the document.
"Sexual exploitation is like a virus. If you expose
it to heat
and light, it will die -- and we need to do this,''
said Bruce
Harris, executive director of Casa Alianza, based
in Costa Rica.
''We now understand the scale of the problem and
the complexity
of the issues, and the scope of our work has to expand too,''
said Mehr Khan, Asia-Pacific director of United
Nations' Children
Fund (UNICEF).
''We expect action and implementation,'' said a
Filipino youth
participant, John Maraquinod. ''There is only one way to go
now - and that straight forward,'' said a statement by young
people at the conference, attended by 134 governments and 148
non-government groups.
''The good side is that from Stockholm until now, the issue
has come out more in the open,'' said Thai law
professor Vitit
Muntarbhorn, rapporteur for the conference. But
more vigilance
and joint action is needed because ''commercial
sexual exploitation
of children mutates and intensifies''.
The Stockholm congress focused on describing the
problem, especially
the child sex trade and sex tourism. But those at
the Yokohama
meeting redefined the sexual abuse of children by including
other, non-commercial aspects of sexual exploitation - from
abuse in the family and early marriage to
trafficked youngsters.
The Dec.17-20 conference also touched on issues that allowed
deeper discussion of child sexual abuse as well as
traditionally
taboo issues -- cultural practices that lead to it, links to
globalisation and consumerism -- and causes that
can be traced
to lack of education, poverty, conflicts,
discrimination.
''This addresses some of the root causes of
exploitation. Some
of the exploitation has a commercial side, some do
not, so this
includes the experiences we young people have gone through,''
said Cherry Kingsley, a survivor of the sex trade
who now campaigns
for children's rights.
''This started mainly as an issue of sex tourism, by foreign
tourists,'' recalls UNICEF's Khan. ''But this
congress has gone
beyond sex tourism.''
Ron O' Grady, founder of the non-government End
Child Prostitution
and Trafficking (ECPAT), agrees that it is time to go beyond
the sexual abuse of children by foreign tourists.
''This really emerged out of Asia, and that was the trigger
years ago, given the number of western men sexually abusing
children in the region,'' O'Grady said in an interview.
''We are going to have that word 'commercial' in 'commercial
sexual exploitation' eventually disappear,'' he said. ''It's
not a bad thing.''
Others said there has been too much focus on sex
tourism, which
has been discussed here as but one aspect of the
sexual exploitation
of children.
''We need to progress faster than we have now,''
explained Marc
Verwilghen, Belgium's federal justice minister. ''We have had
Europeans and African countries saying they face problems of
sexual exploitation that have nothing to do with
the commercial
aspects.''
The EU issued an ''explanatory declaration'' on the Yokohama
commitment, stating that ''the fight against sexual
exploitation
is extended to all forms of sexual violence and
sexual abuse''.
The EU also asked countries to ratify legal instruments for
child rights protection like the Convention on the Rights of
the Child -- remarks directed toward the United States, which
together with Somalia, are the only countries that have not
ratified it.
The United States did not have much of a voice at
the conference,
where its role was often cited for Washington's
failure so far
to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Washington's explanatory statement said it joined
the Yokohama
consensus, but expressed some reservations about
the decriminalisation
of acts related to prostitution. The global
commitment document
exhorts states to fight the criminalisation of the
sexual exploitation
of children ''without penalising the child victims''.
The EU and other activists also batted for getting
more countries
to recognise child protection for people up to 18
years of age,
separating it from the question of age of sexual
consent. This
was also discussed five years ago, but did not progress much
here and remains a matter of debate.
Verwilghen said there are also other legal areas that could
be raised for international discussion, such as
having the concept
of extraterritoriality of sexual offenses as the norm and the
lifting of the prescriptive period during which victims can
bring such cases to court.
Other aspects of sexual exploitation discussed here included
an increase in the trafficking of children for
different purposes,
the misuse of technology, especially the Internet,
for exploitative
purposes. ''We need to humanise this technology,''
Vitit said.
''The implementation process (of efforts against
exploitation)
is particularly challenged by five 'Cs' which often obstruct
the effective guarantee of child rights: Crime, Corruption,
Collusion, Clientilism and Complacency,'' he
pointed out.
But some said that despite this week's added
commitments, governments
and campaigners must not forget the fact that only some 50 of
the 122 governments in Stockholm have produced
plans of action
and many have not been able to comply with pledges
made there.
''No more empty promises,'' said Raffaele Salinari of the NGO
Group for the Convention of the Rights of the
Child. ''We need
a political commitment beyond world congresses.''
Young people
meantime said they have noticed much more participation for
them here, but some said they had expected more of it. ''In
a way we were just a mere presence here. We have to have more
opportunity to voice our opinions,'' one Japanese
young person
said.
''Commercial sexual exploitation of children cannot be fought
by adults only,'' said April Rose Chiong, a
14-year-old participant
from the Philippines. ''They need the cooperation of children
and young people.'' (END)
