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.

Displaying 141 - 150 of 468

Browse Other Topics

Children First : A Global Perspective on Volunteering In Orphanages and Transforming Care

Comhlámh and the Volunteering and Orphanages Working Group (OWG), 01 May 2019

This report from Comhlámh and the Volunteering and Orphanages Working Group (OWG) explores the negative impacts of institutionalization on children and the negative impacts of volunteering in orphanages, including the proliferation of orphanages and perpetuation of family separation to satisfy volunteer demands, highlighting recommendations for addressing this issue.

Country Care Review: Saudi Arabia

Better Care Network, 09 Apr 2019

This country care review includes the care-related Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Child trafficking victims and legal guardians: Exploring the fulfilment of the EU trafficking directive in the context of the UK modern Slavery Act 2015 – Best practice or not fit for purpose?

Amy Weatherburn & Yvonne Eloise Mellon - New Journal of European Criminal Law, 25 Mar 2019

This article will consider the extent to which the protection of child trafficking victims under the jurisdiction of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 is sufficient to fulfil the legal positive obligations imposed by EU Law.

View Article

Transitioning Donors: 5 Steps to bring your supporters on the journey to a new model

Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO), 24 Mar 2019

CAFO engaged with markempa to study how OVC-serving organizations inspired donors to give toward a new model of family-based care. In this guide, you’ll learn the five steps to help transition your donors to improve fundraising outcomes and create the financial capacity to provide better care for vulnerable children and families.

Country Care Review: Czech Republic

Better Care Network, 05 Mar 2019

This country care review includes the care-related Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Committees' recommendations on the issues relevant to children's care are highlighted, as well as other care-related concluding observations, ratification dates, and links to the Universal Periodic Review and Hague Intercountry Adoption Country Profile.

"Baby Factories": Exploitation of Women in Southern Nigeria

Jacinta Chiamaka Nwaka & Akachi Odoemene - Dignity: A Journal on Sexual Exploitation and Violence, 01 Mar 2019

This paper examines the development and proliferation of baby-selling centers in southern Nigeria and its impacts on and implication for women in Nigeria. It demonstrates how an attempt to give protection to unwed pregnant girls has metamorphosed into “baby harvesting” and selling through the notorious “baby factories,” where young women are held captive and used like industrial machines for baby production.

Benevolent harm: Orphanages, voluntourism and child sexual exploitation in South-East Asia

Samantha Lyneham and Lachlan Facchini - Australian Institute of Criminology, 01 Mar 2019

This paper summarises the processes by which children become vulnerable to sexual exploitation and related harms within or facilitated by orphanages.

Disadvantaged Childhoods and Humanitarian Intervention: Processes of Affective Commodification and Objectification

Cheney, Kristen, Sinervo, Aviva (Eds.), 24 Feb 2019

This book explores how humanitarian interventions for children in difficult circumstances engage in affective commodification of disadvantaged childhoods.

View Book

Child Trafficking for Adoption Purposes: A Criminological Analysis of the Illegal Adoption Market

Elvira Loibl - The Palgrave International Handbook of Human Trafficking, 19 Feb 2019

This chapter identifies the structural components of the transnational illegal adoption market by applying the basic logic of the routine activity theory that has been developed by Cohen and Felson.

View Article

Article: The Orphan Industrial Complex: The Charitable Commodification of Children and Its Consequences for Child Protection

Kristen Cheney & Stephen Ucembe - Disadvantaged Childhoods and Humanitarian Intervention, 08 Feb 2019

This chapter explicates the concept of the orphan industrial complex to argue that persistent narratives of “orphan rescue” not only commodify orphans and orphanhood itself but—counter to their stated goal—can actually spur the “production” of “orphans,” resulting in child exploitation and trafficking.

View Article