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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Nepal Infographic: Why Funding for Orphanages is Harming the Children it Aims to Help

Elevate Children Funders Group, 2017

This infographic from the Elevate Children Funders Group describes how private donors add to the "pull factors drawing more vulnerable children into institutional care and away from family or community care."

Unanticipated outcomes of voluntourism among Malawi's orphans

Andrea Lee Freidus - Journal of Sustainable Tourism , 16 Dec 2016

This project adds to the newly emerging literature on orphan tourism. In-depth, open-ended interviews and participant observations were conducted over a three-month period with American travelers to a Malawian orphanage between 2009 and 2010.

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Why we don’t support orphanage volunteering: a response to IVHQ

Better Volunteering Better Care, 14 Dec 2016

Better Volunteering Better Care (BVBC) responds to a blog by the Executive Director of the volunteer travel company IVHQ expressing his views about the benefits of orphanage volunteering.

Orphanage Entrepreneurs: The Trafficking of Haiti's Invisible Children

Georgette Mulheir and Mara Cavanagh - Lumos, 01 Nov 2016

According to this report from Lumos, of the estimated 32,000 children who live in orphanages in Haiti, only 20 are percent orphans.

Entrepreneurs d’orphelinat : La traite des enfants invisibles d’Haïti

Georgette Mulheir avec Mara Cavanagh, 01 Nov 2016

On estime que 32 000 enfants vivent dans des orphelinats en Haïti.

Child Protection Q3 2016 Dashboard, Inter-Agency Coordination Lebanon

Inter-Agency Coordination - Lebanon, 18 Oct 2016

The quarterly dashboard summarizes the progress made by partners involved in the Lebanon Crisis Response and highlights trends a!ecting people in need.

Child Abuse Case In Myanmar Highlights Broken System

Radio Free Asia, 30 Sep 2016

Than Than Ei was just nine years old when she was sent to work for a family in Yangon, where she suffered years of physical and emotional abuse.

NGN's Wisdom Wednesdays: Martin Punaks, NGN Country Director

05 Sep 2016

Next Generation Nepal Country Director Martin Punaks talks about orphanage trafficking in Nepal, why orphanage volunteers may inadvertently be part of the problem and how you can be part of the solution through ethical volunteering and other ways of "giving back."

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Safe Spaces: The Urgent Need for Early Childhood Development in Emergencies and Disasters

Kolleen Bouchane, Molly Curtiss, and Bethany Ellis - Best Start, Theirworld, 01 Sep 2016

This paper from Best Start (a global campaign for Early Childhood Development led by children’s charity Theirworld) emphasizes the need for holistic early childhood development (ECD) programs - Safe Spaces - for young children in emergency situations.

Outreach Work: Child Sexual Exploitation - A Rapid Evidence Assessment

Silvie Bovarnick, Di McNeish and Jenny Pearce , 01 Sep 2016

This briefing is based on a rapid review of the available literature on outreach work with children and young people. It is intended to provide the ReachOut project with an overview of different approaches to outreach; what it generally aims to achieve; what distinguishes it from centre-based work and how it is applicable to children and young people involved in, or at risk of, child sexual exploitation.