Child Exploitation

Child trafficking is a form of child abuse. It is the exploitation of children for economic or sexual purposes, and includes the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of a child for exploitation. Children may be sold, illegally adopted, forced into early marriage, recruited into the armed forces, pushed into prostitution, or trafficked to work in mines, factories, or homes. In such environments they are exposed to extreme forms of abuse and are denied access to basic services and the meeting of their fundamental human rights. Trafficked children often lack basic legal status and support networks, making their condition virtually "invisible."

Children without parental care, living in poverty, and those in high risk environments such as war affected regions, are all highly vulnerable to trafficking. Conflict and post conflict environments pose the greatest risk to children since the breakdown in family and social systems, the increase in poverty, and large numbers of troops present, are all factors which make sexual and economic exploitation of children more common.

Prevention is crucial to reduce the incidence of children affected and includes the registering of all displaced children, and their temporary care until verification and family reunification activities can take place. All children, caretakers, and communities should be educated on the risks to children and protective steps to ensure children do not become separated and exposed to abuse and exploitation. Where possible, unaccompanied children should be placed in regulated and protective family environments such as kinship or foster care.

Governments, the police, border controls, teachers, and all organizations responsible for protection must work together to prevent trafficking, identify those children at risk, advocate for their safety, and prosecute those responsible. This includes awareness raising for communities, institutions, and personnel working with vulnerable groups, such as armed forces, peacekeepers, and humanitarian workers.

Support services for children who have been trafficked should include medical, psychosocial, family reunification, and legal elements, to facilitate the reintegration of the child into the community and to enable educational and economic opportunities which are in the child’s best interests.

This section of documents examines the nature of trafficking in more detail, and includes policy and practical information to prevent and respond to child exploitation.

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Is an End to Child Marriage within Reach? Latest Trends and Future Prospects

UNICEF, 15 May 2023

The practice of child marriage has continued to decline globally. Today, one in five young women aged 20 to 24 years were married as children versus nearly one in four 10 years ago.

Applying Safe Behaviours - Preventing and Responding to Peer Violence

SOS Children's Villages, 30 Apr 2023

In the project “Applying Safe Behaviours”, SOS Children’s Villages is working to enable children, young people and professionals to prevent and appropriately respond to peer violence amongst children and young people in alternative care an

Étude historique sur les pratiques illicites dans l’adoption internationale en France // Historical study on illicit practices in international adoption in France

Yves Denéchère, Fábio Macedo, 13 Feb 2023

This study examines international adoptions by French people in more than twenty countries from 1979 to 2021. Researchers analyzed thousands of diplomatic files from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the subject and found reports of various illicit practices in the process of adopting children.

Child Labour and Education in Humanitarian Settings: Background Paper

The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies, 12 Dec 2022

This paper attempts to highlight some of the key issues regarding child labour and education in emergencies.

Time to Act – Toolkit for Practitioners: Gender-Transformative Programme Strategies for Addressing Child, Early and Forced Marriage and Unions in Asia-Pacific

Plan International Asia-Pacific Regional Hub, 01 Apr 2022

This toolkit developed by Plan International Asia-Pacific Regional Hub serves as a practical compendium of programming guidance for practitioners, and contributes to accelerating efforts to end child, early and forced marriage and unions (CEFMU) by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Launch: Cycles of Exploitation – Links Between Children’s Institutions and Human Trafficking Report

LUMOS, 14 Dec 2021

Watch the launch of a ground-breaking report: Cycles of Exploitation: The Links Between Children’s Institutions and Human Trafficking. The report makes recommendations for breaking the complex cycles of exploitation that trap children and let traffickers go free.

Ending Corporal Punishment in the Early Years of Childhood: An Essential Right and Need of Every Child

Early Childhood Development Action Network, Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, 01 Nov 2021

This briefing, authored by Jorge Cuartas with End Violence and the Early Childhood Development Action Network examines evidence from research on the impacts of violent punishment on young children, global prevalence and progress towards universal prohibition, and strategies to end corporal punishment. It adds yet more weight to the call that all countries must take steps to prohibit and eliminate violent punishment of all children without delay.

‘We have to make the tourists happy’; orphanage tourism in Siem Reap, Cambodia through the children’s own voices

Amanda Miller & Harriot Beazley - Children's Geographies, 13 Apr 2021

This paper examines the lived experiences of children who interacted with tourists in a performance-based orphanage in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

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Sexual victimization and intellectual disabilities among child welfare involved youth

Ann Carrellas, Stella M. Resko, Angelique G. Day - Child Abuse & Neglect, 25 Feb 2021

This study addresses a gap in the literature regarding older youth with intellectual disabilities who are sexually victimized and pushed to engage in transactional sex while they are transitioning from child welfare systems involvement. It does so by examining risk and protective factors at the individual, micro, exo, and macro systems levels.

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Inter-Agency Toolkit: Preventing and Responding to Child Labour in Humanitarian Action

The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, 18 Feb 2021

This toolkit complements the 2019 Edition of the Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action and seeks to form an evidence base for child labour programming in humanitarian settings, reflecting the great progress made over the past years.