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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‘Orphanage Tourism’ in Cambodia: When Residential Care Centres Become Tourist Attractions

Tess Guiney - Pacific News #38 , 02 May 2012

This research investigates the forms that ‘orphanage tourism’ takes in Cambodia and the impacts of this popular phenomenon on those who are purported to benefit: orphanages and orphans.

Transactional sex as a form of child sexual exploitation and abuse in Rwanda: Implications for child security and protection

Timothy P. Williams, Agnes Binagwaho, Theresa S. Betancourt - Child Abuse & Neglect Volume 36, Issue 4 , 05 Apr 2012

This study was designed to illuminate the different manifestations of transactional sexual exploitation and abuse among Rwanda's children in order to inform effective responses by policies, programs, and communities.

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State of the World's Children 2012: Children in an Urban World

UNICEF, 2012

This report provides data on children living in urban settings, including statistics, conditions, and personal testimonies. The report also includes UNICEF’s recommendations for policy regarding children in urban settings, working with this population, and for future action. Sections that are relevant to children’s care include: children living and working on the streets, migrant children, urban emergencies, and many more.

Institutionalised childhood and adolescence: Making serious Human Rights violations visible.

Matilde Luna - RELAF, 01 Aug 2011

This paper, produced by RELAF, is part of a series of publications on children without parental care in Latin America: Contexts, causes and answers. This document, and others in the series, pertains to the broad topic of children without parental care and examines the particular situation of institutionalised children.

Improving Child Protection Responses in Indonesia: Learning from the Protection Homes for Children (RPSA)

Florence Martin, Save the Children , 20 Feb 2011

This report reviews the role and practice of State-established child protection residential institutions in Indonesia focused on providing services for children defined as being in need of special protection under the Child Protection law, in particular child victims of abuse, neglect or exploitation including victims of trafficking.

Advocacy Package: IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings

Inter-Agency Standing Committee Reference Group, 2011

This Advocacy Package explains what the IASC guidelines are and how they are to be used, highlights the key campaigning activities, key messages for communities, donors, UN Agencies and Non-Governmental organisations, clarifies terminology and provide ideas for country level implementation.

Child Protection in the Philippines: A Situational Analysis

Save the Children , 2011

This situational analysis was commissioned by the Child Protection Initiative as a preliminary exercise to develop evidence-based recommendations to guide Save the Children in the Philippines to develop interventions. Priority areas are children in residential care, children in armed conflict and disasters, children in situations of migration (including for trafficking purposes), and children in exploitative and hazardous work conditions.

AIDS orphan tourism: A threat to young children in residential care

Linda M. Richter and Amy Norman - Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies: An International Interdisciplinary Journal for Research, Policy and Care, 27 Sep 2010

This article reviews the current discourse on what is being called a crisis of care for children, as well as literature on out-of-home/family care and its adverse impacts on child development. The article also describes an emerging “AIDS orphan tourism” and highlights its negative impacts.

สู่ครอบครัว มิใช่สถานเลี้ยงเด็กกําพร้ (Families, Not Orphanages)

John Williamson and Aaron Greenberg - Better Care Network, 31 Aug 2010

With particular attention to lower income countries, Families, Not Orphanages examines the mismatch between children’s needs and the realities and long-term effects of residential institutions.

Children and Adolescents without Parental Care in Latin America: Contexts, causes, and consequences of being deprived of the right to family

Relaf, 13 Aug 2010

This paper aims to show different organisations, institutions, governments and civil society the reality facing thousands of children in Latin America. This information can be used as a tool for debating and prioritising the issue as well as promoting constructing good practices and public policies that will improve the wellbeing and chances to develop of children without parental care and/or who are at risk of losing