Children in Crisis / Crisis Reports

Crisis Reports

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• Sexually Exploited

The Sexually Expoited

I am seventeen years of age.
This is my story. My life is so troubled. I go from one place to another and am abused from one place to another. My mother dislikes me. She brought me to a juvenile home to be disciplined but when we got there she told the workers that she was giving me away because she could not feed her children anymore. In no time at all I escaped from that place. I went to my aunt who sent me to work as a housemaid in her friend's place. I had my first sexual experience there. The brother-in-law of my master raped me. When I told my aunt what had happened, she said it was probably a figment of my imagination.

I left my master and went on my own. I found myself dancing at a club at the age of 11. I had a better life as a dancer but the owner abused me sexually. Again I left. I hopped from one club to another in the red-light district of Manila. I was in one of the clubs when I experienced a police raid. We were brought to the city jail in our bikinis. One of the policemen had sex with me. This I did to bail myself out. For many years now, my life has been a series of hits and misses. I have had different kinds of customers: foreigners and Filipinos. I tried suicide but it didn't work, so I turned to drugs. I don't know about tomorrow. I want to die before my next birthday.¹

Statistics:

• Worldwide, an estimated 10 million children are victims of today's sex industry.²
• The number of children trafficked each year is the same as the number of children under five living in Australia: 1.2 million.³
• The official UNICEF figure is approximately 1 million child victims throughout Asia alone. Individual country estimates according to ECPAT are 200,000-250,000 victims of child sexual exploitation in Thailand, 400,000 in India, 6,000 in Vietnam, 60,000 in the Phillipines and 10,000-15,000 in Sri Lanka. In some countries such as Sri Lanka it appears to be a relatively new and growing problem associated with tourism. ⁴
• The number of children sexually exploited in the multi-billion dollar commercial sex industry is the same as the number of children living in Belgium: 2 million.⁵
• In Bangkok 40,000 of the 100,000 prostitutes are under 14 years old.⁶
• Boys are also victims of the growing sex industry: In Sri Lanka some 10,000 boys work as child prostitutes and in Paris there are some 5,000 boys and 3,000 girls, mainly from Eastern European countries, who work as child prostitutes.⁷

What is the commercial sexual exploitation of children?

Definition: It is the exploitation, for sexual purposes and for financial or in-kind profit, of children. It is an extremely hazardous form of child labor, an abuse of power over children and a way to dominate them.⁸

National situations

Asia: Commercial sexual exploitation of children typically takes the form of local men using the services of child prostitutes, or of so-called 'sex tourism'. Sometimes children are sold into the sex trade by families or friends, sometimes knowingly, sometimes in the mistaken belief that the children will become domestic servants or otherwise earn money for the family. Sometimes the children are kidnapped, trafficked across borders or from rural to urban areas, and moved from place to place so that they effectively 'disappear'.

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South America: Children are forced to earn a living on the streets and may ultimately either choose or be forced to enter the sex trade. They are vulnerable to pimps who exploit them for profit and offer them 'protection' which masks abuse, often violence and too often drug-dependency. Sometimes, however, they enter the sex trade 'voluntarily', seeking to earn more from sex than they can from other forms of street labor, to finance a drug habit, purchase consumer goods otherwise out of their reach, or simply to be able to eat.

Europe: Children are trafficked across the borders of mainland Europe from poorer countries in the East to wealthier countries where the market for children is fueled by organized pedophile-rings and high-tech information services.

Africa: Evidence suggests that the employment of children as domestic servants often includes sexual exploitation. There are also indications that children are employed in hotels, restaurants, and brothels, where they are sexually exploited. There is evidence of sexual exploitation of girls in refugee camps and of boys recruited into the armed forces not only to fight but to service the soldiers. In many parts of Africa, governments continue to deny that the problem exists.

Middle East: Some governments deny the problem exists. The recruitment of children as domestic help, however, is common and, as in Africa, often extends to use of the children for sexual purposes. Early marriage has been seen as a convenient means of "legitimizing" sex with children.

Why are children sexually expoited?

• Economic injustice and resulting disparities between rich and poor
• Family dysfunction and their breakdown
• Isolation
• Lack of support structures
• Breakdown of moral values
• Drug abuse
• Urbanization
• Cultural values which discriminate against girls and women
• Deterioration of traditional community and cultural support systems
• Ignorance: Parents need to be educated on the fate of their children sold into labor
• Contact with foreigners and foreign liberalism
• Myths: for example, that sex with a virgin improves business and power.⁹

What impact does sexual exploitation have on children?

• Theft:: The child loses its childhood, dignity and often its future.
• Slavery: A girl is 'servicing' often 5 and sometimes as many as 20 men during a 10-hour-day, seven days a week.
• Abuse: Children are often physically abused, beaten, burned, tortured and deprived of food, air, light and movement.
• Rape: Every child that refuses to accept a lower payment than what is normal risks to be taken to a 'safe' place where she is repeatedly raped.
• Illness: The girls are vulnerable to kidney infections, cervical cancer, early and repeated pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases.
• Drugs: Children involved in prostitution consume high levels of substance abuse. Drugs are often used to keep children submissive. They may also be a self-medicating means to numb the pain of hunger or despair.¹⁰

Sex tourism & pornography

For many nations struggling to grow economically, tourism has become a major growth industry. Consequently, despite their own laws, some Asian governments have been reluctant to shut down the sex industry, fearing tourists might be less likely to visit.

Although this report deals with situations of particular children's groups separately, this does not mean that all children are "only" street children or "only" war victims. The definitions and boundaries between the different needy groups are not so clear. In most cases they blend together.. For example, children who have become victims of war, who have perhaps even fought as child soldiers and lost their parents, live on the streets and work, perhaps as prostitutes. In these cases we are dealing with extreme traumas that can only be dealt with through much wisdom, patience, love and God's help.

References:

¹ Poppy in The Child and the Tourist, Ron O'Grady, Global Ministries
² World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
³ Unicef State of the World's Children 2005.
⁴ TEAR FUND
⁵ Unicef State of the World's Children 2005
⁶ World Vision
⁷ World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and UN
⁸ World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
⁹ ibid.
¹⁰ ibid.