Ranked by governments as the third most serious illegal trade after drugs and weapons, trafficking is a multibillion-dollar industry
Moi, a 16-year-old girl from a rural province in Cambodia, was approached by a neighbour with the prospect of a job in the capital, Phnom Penh. Instead, the neighbour sold Moi to a brothel for the equivalent of $150; after five days she was sold to a second brothel. By the end of two months, she had been sold to five different brothels, bringing to $750 the money exchanged for her. Moi, who was forced to have sex with as many as 10 men every day, received nothing. Moi's mother, meanwhile, alarmed by her daughter's disappearance, had persuaded a policeman she knew to trace Moi, who was rescued and puncture marks at the base of her skull, indicating she may have been injected with valium to subdue her. Moi also was found to have a vaginal infection. She has so far tested negative for HIV.
The details differ, but the outlines of Moi's story are recognisable to the more than 1 million girls and women world-wide who are trafficked and sold into prostitution each year. Of these, an estimated 35 per cent are children under 18.
Trafficking or the illegal moving and selling of human beings across countries and continents in exchange for financial or other compensation, has long been outlawed by most national legislation and international human rights conventions. Ranked by governments as the third most serious illegal trade after drugs and weapons, trafficking of children is a multibillion-dollar industry. This modern form of slavery continues in its most virulent form: in the trafficking of girls and women, and increasingly, a growing number of boys for sexual purposes. Such trafficking takes place between villages and cities, across countries and continents.
Because trafficking is an illegal and underground operation, and because it usually involves more than one national jurisdiction, data is difficult to obtain. Most of the existing data is focused on Asia, where researchers and NGOs have been working on the problem for a longer time than in other regions. However, trafficking occurs everywhere and is constantly shifting and expanding its frontiers and opening new markets.
The complex network of operations moves children from small rural communities in Asia to cities such as Bangkok, Bombay and Phnom Penh; from urban slums in Rio or Recife to mining camps in remote frontier areas of Brazil; from Mozambique to South Africa, Mexico to the United States, the Russian Federation and Poland to Western Europe, Romania to Italy, Turkey and Cyprus. Trafficking routes also run from Africa to Europe, Asia to Australia, New Zealand and Europe.
Trafficking can be small-scale and informal or large-scale and organised. At national and international levels, it is often governed by syndicates that have the resources, contacts and expertise to co-ordinate the movement of human beings illegally and clandestinely across borders. Bribery and abduction, false identification and documentation, sham marriages and adoptions, violence and bonded labour are all involved. Armies in certain countries, with access to technology, clearances, means of transport and resources, have also been implicated in the trafficking of children for sexual purposes. Border police often enable these practices.
The trafficking of children results from a broad range of factors. The effects of poverty and social and economic crises in the last two decades in a number of countries and areas have destabilized communities and increased income disparities.
Globalization, with the lifting of import restrictions and the injection of greater amounts of foreign investment in many countries, has triggered an influx of money and goods, further aggravating disparities and promoting new levels of consumerism.
In families beleaguered by changes and losing ground in efforts to make ends meet, girls -already often devalued - are especially at risk. They may be sold by their families to traffickers or put in vulnerable positions when sent as domestic workers to large urban centres. Coming from poor or ethnic minority communities, they may be seen objects of exploitation.
Impact on children
The children who are trafficked into prostitution face dangers beyond the injuries, disease and trauma associated with multiple sexual encounters. Betrayed by those they trust, forcibly separated from their families by long distances and even across borders, where they are isolated by a foreign language and culture, these children may become dependent and dangerously attached to pimps and brothel operators. Their illegal status makes it hard for them to seek help, and they live in fear of arrest and prosecution for prostitution, illegal immigration and false documentation. Often drugs are used to subdue the children, not only endangering their health but imposing dependency upon them, which makes escape and rehabilitation even more difficult.
Children who manage to escape face difficulties in explaining who they are and where they come from because of language barriers and lack of documents. Police arrest them on prostitution charges, and courts may deport them. Even when they do succeed in returning home, they may be rejected by their families and communities. Often lacking employment skills and with physical and psychological problems from their experience, these children may return to prostitution as their only means of survival.
Preventative measures
A broad range of interrelated measures must be effected to curb the trafficking of children into prostitution. These efforts include legislation, rehabilitation and reintegration programmes for children who have escaped or been rescued from prostitution, and steps to educate and raise awareness among families and communities about the dangers involved. Training of police and the judiciary is also essential.
NGOs have been especially effective in monitoring the problem and compiling much of the data and evidence to prosecute child traffickers, and some countries have improved legislation. In the Philippines, for example, the Republic Act 7610 offers guidelines controlling foreign travel by children as well as the adoption of children, making any trading or dealing in children in return for financial considerations illegal. In Thailand, proposed amendments to the penal code will punish guardians who sell children in their care. The selling, buying and transporting of children under 18 for unlawful sexual gratification will be criminalized by an update to the Trafficking of Women and Girls Act, even if the young person has consented. This Act recognises that children are not the offenders and that no prostitution charges should be lodged against them. In Sri Lanka, recent amendments to the penal code make trafficking an offence in terms similar to those of the Philippines legislation.
In the industrialised countries, trafficking is addressed often in the context of immigration. The Council of Europe has suggested that activities of artistic, marriage and adoption agencies be supervised, that travel abroad by children be subject to surveillance by immigration authorities, and that young victims of trafficking be helped and protected. In response, the European Union has expanded the mandate of its Drug Unit to enable it to monitor traffic in human beings. Much of the proposed legislation targets inter-country adoptions and marriages that are often a cover for child trafficking. An international consensus and close collaboration are vitally important in this issue. The problem's dimensions are becoming clear, as are the steps needed.
So too is the life of the trafficked child, an unforgettable spur to the political will of the world.
