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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Social Justice and Intercountry Adoptions: The Role of the U.S. Social Work Community

Jini L. Roby, Karen Rotabi, and Kelley M. Bunkers , 19 Sep 2013

Using social justice as the conceptual foundation, the authors present the structural barriers to socially just intercountry adoptions (ICAs) that can exploit and oppress vulnerable children and families participating in ICAs. They argue that such practices threaten the integrity of social work practice in that arena and the survival of ICA as a placement option.

A Better Way to Protect ALL Children: The Theory and Practice of Child Protection Systems, Conference Report

UNICEF, UNHCR, Save the Children and World Vision, 15 Sep 2013

This report of a major conference held in New Delhi in November 2012 entitled “A Better Way to Protect ALL Children: The Theory and Practice of Child Protection Systems”, encapsulates the substantive content of the presentations and related discussion; provides an analysis and documents the journey; and suggest an agenda, or at least direction, for future work on Child Protection systems.

Country Care Review: Uzbekistan

Better Care Network, 12 Aug 2013

This Country Care Review includes the care-related concluding observations on the third and fourth periodic reports of Uzbekistan, adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child at its sixty-third session (27 May–14 June 2013), as well as other care-related concluding observations, ratification dates, and links to the Universal Periodic Review and Hague Intercountry Adoption Country Profile.

Country Care Review: Guinea Bissau

Better Care Network, 08 Jul 2013

This country care review includes the care related Concluding Observations adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child as part of its examination during the sixty-third session (27 May-14 June 2013) of Guinea Bissau’s second through fourth periodic reports to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as other care-related concluding observations, ratification dates, and links to the Universal Periodic Review and Hague Intercountry Adoption Country Profile.

Parenting a Child Who Has Been Sexually Abused: A Guide for Foster and Adoptive Parents

Child Welfare Information Gateway, 01 Jul 2013

This factsheet is designed for caregivers and discusses how they can help children in their care by educating themselves about child sexual abuse, establishing guidelines for safety and privacy in their families, and understanding when and how to seek help if needed.

Causal Framework of Child Institutionalization in Moldova

Partnerships for Every Child Moldova, 24 Jun 2013

This graphic provides a visual representation of the causal framework of children’s institutionalization in Moldova. It was developed as part of the USAID/DCOF-funded project “Protecting children in Moldova from family separation, violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.”

Orphan Fever: The Evangelical Movement's Adoption Obsession

Kathryn Joyce - Mother Jones, 01 May 2013

In this article, Kathryn Joyce the author of the book 'The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption' chronicles the rapidly growing evangelical movement for international adoption in the United States, and its impact on children and their families, with a particular focus on Liberia.

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Charts: America's Troubled Affair with Overseas Adoption

Sydney Brownstone and Carolyn Perot, Mother Jones, 15 Apr 2013

Charts that accompany the article Orphan Fever: The Evangelical Movement’s Adoption Obsession, illustrating the trends in international adoptions from Liberia, Kyrgyzstan, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Haiti to families in the United States.

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The Future Begins in the Family

Partnerships for Every Child in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour, Social Protection, and Family and the Ministry of Education, 01 Apr 2013

This issue No. 3-4 is one in a newsletter series concerning care reform in Moldova. The magazine was produced by Partnerships for Every Child (P4EC), an NGO in Moldova, with funding from the project, “Protecting children in Moldova from family separation, violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.”

Inter-Agency Statement on strengthening child protection systems in sub-Saharan Africa: A call to action to African Union States

Inter-Agency Working Group (list of organizations below), 01 Apr 2013

Thirteen agencies working in Africa have issued a Joint Statement calling on African governments to strengthen their child protection systems to secure the right of children to a life free from violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect in both emergency and non-emergency settings.