What is trafficking of children for prostitution?

Trafficking of children for prostitution is a global problem and we cannot single out any country. Poverty is the main reason for this evil and many believe the good job offers as domestic workers, in restaurants or hotels or any other jobs. In the host country they land mostly in the brothels and in private clubs.

50% of the women trafficked are minors. Tens of thousand times women believe false promises of men and in the destination with physical force, drugs or torture they will be broken to engage in prostitution. Everybody knows this but very little is happening to stop this.

If a girl could earn the monthly income of her father in one night some father’s even in Eastern Europe send their daughter for this work. It is a shame, but poverty is the root cause for this. Asia, Africa, South America and East European countries are the main places from where the women and children are trafficked for prostitution. Unfortunately, sometimes, the father or the husband sells minor girls or wife and this happens even in India.

Domestic workers face serious abuses and exploitation such as physical and sexual abuse, excessive working hours, no rest days, almost house arrest, punishments like denial of food and health care, and above all non-payment of wages. Most governments, including those in Western countries, exclude domestic workers from the coverage of the labour laws. Thus they have no protection and suffer a lot. These abuses take place in private homes and the public has no chance to know or see these offences.

Trafficking in children also takes place to train the children to beg. Parts of the body are damaged so that they could get more money. Some are trained to be pickpockets and others are exploited as drug couriers because in some countries children below 14 are not tried in the court of law.

We preach everyday so many good things for others. Here the children are physically and mentally destroyed. Are we not in a position to stop this evil? Anyhow, it is a shame to all. It can happen to any child. So protect your children very carefully.

For further details read my book “Sexual Abuse of Children and Sex Health Education” published in Aaron Verlag Publishers Private Limited. The original is in English and the Tamil translation is also available. It is also available as e-book. For further particulars visit www.aaronverlag.com.

Sexual Abuse of Children and Youth

While the disappearance and sexual exploitation or sexual abuses of children are alarming problems in our world, even today no clear data are available on their extent. Parental abductions, runaways, criminal abductions and lost or injured or otherwise missing children come in this group.

Every year millions of children and teenagers go missing; most of them are female. Many come back, some are found murdered and many are gone forever.

According to the United States Department of Justice, the number of missing persons in the USA reported to law enforcement in 2000 was nearly 9 lakhs and today it is even higher. 49% of the children are kidnapped by a relative, 27% by an acquaintance and 24% by a stranger.

The recent data shows that there are 140,000 cases of missing children annually in UK which means 383 new cases per day and in Belgium it is 8 new cases per day. UK and Belgium have 61 and 10.5 million populations respectively and India has 1150 million and the problem is correspondingly big.

In the case of kidnapping done by relatives of the child in question, the reasons may be partner, property or sexual abuse problems. In kidnappings by acquaintances, the largest percentile is teenage females, and it is more often associated with sexual and physical assault. It has the highest percentage of injured victims. In kidnappings by strangers, teenagers and school-age children are the victims, but more female victims than males. The sexual assaults are associated mostly with females and robberies are most often with males.

The number of missing children in Canada in 2002 was nearly 66,000.

In Australia approximately 30,000 persons go missing every year.

In most countries, like in India, there are no statistics about the missing children but, in all the countries children and teenagers go missing. Some may run away from their homes, some are abducted due to family quarrels, but many for sexual abuse, particularly for prostitution.

The number of children forced into prostitution in Brazil is between 2,5 lakhs and 5 lakhs and it may be up to 20 lakhs according to other sources. In the mining regions of the North Brazilian Amazon basin, the situation for the children and teenagers is at its worst. But, Brazil is not the worst in this and it comes only next to Thailand where local and tourism factors play a vital role. It is also a big problem in Africa, but willingly done by the girls and the family to get presents from the far more elder men.

Since 2004, more than 6,270 teenagers have been reported missing in Malaysia and out of these 4,620 are teenage girls. According to police statistics, 71 girls are found dead in 2005 and another 71 female bodies are found in 2006.

In India, there are no statistics about missing children and teenagers, and the number may be very high compared to other countries. There have been innumerable cases of infants, toddlers and teenagers who just disappeared one day and were never heard from again.