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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Cambodian Practitioner Learning Video Series

Better Care Network, 12 Sep 2019

Comprised of 12 videos and accompanying discussion guides, this video series features the learning from practitioners working across a range of care-related programs and practices in Cambodia.

The Impact of the Care Setting on Child Rehabilitation

Better Care Network, 12 Sep 2019

In this video, Sreyna and Chenda, two practitioners from Hagar Cambodia, discuss their learning regarding the impact of the care setting on child rehabilitation.

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Commentary: Contextualizing Alternatives to RCTs: Measuring the Impact of a Non‐Governmental Sponsorship Organization's Projects to Strengthen Children's Supportive Environments

Darcy L. Strouse Kathryn Moore - New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 11 Sep 2019

The purpose of this commentary is to reflect on the utility and possible application of the suggestions and study designs in this special issue to real‐life intervention studies in dynamic context settings.

2019 Annual report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children

Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children , 30 Jul 2019

This report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children highlights action taken at national and regional levels towards realizing the right of every child to protection from violence.

Could I do something like that? Recruiting and training foster carers for teenagers “at risk” of or experiencing child sexual exploitation

Lucie Shuker & Jenny Pearce - Child & Family Social Work, 30 Jul 2019

Using evidence from the evaluation of specialist foster care provision and a child sexual exploitation (CSE) training course for foster carers, this paper [from the Child & Family Social Work special issue on teenagers in foster care] considers how training might be used to widen the pool of potential foster carers for children affected by CSE and identifies qualities displayed by effective carers.

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Country Care Review: Sri Lanka

Better Care Network, 03 Jul 2019

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

Discussion Paper: Review of Existing Definitions and Explanations of Abuse, Neglect, Exploitation and Violence against Children

The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, 02 Jul 2019

This report examines the main elements of child abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence (nature of the act; perpetrator relationship to the child; motivation or intent; and outcomes) in ways that recognise the overlap and highlight the distinctions between each type of maltreatment.

Keeping the Promise: Ending Violence Against Children by 2030

The Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children, 01 Jul 2019

This report from the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children outlines the impacts of violence against children and proposes recommendations for safeguarding the right of every child to protection from all forms of violence.

Child welfare characteristics in a sample of youth involved in commercial sex: An exploratory study

Johanna K. P. Greeson, Daniel Treglia, Debra Schilling Wolfe, Sarah Wasch, Richard J. Gelles - Child Abuse & Neglect, 07 Jun 2019

The aims of this study were (1) to estimate child welfare characteristics in a sample of homeless young people in the US who engaged in commercial sex (CS); and (2) to compare young people who were sex trafficked (ST) to those who engaged in some other form of CS.

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The Perceptions of Australian Workers about Caring for Sexually Exploited Children in Residential Care

Gemma McKibbin & Cathy Humphreys - Child Abuse Review, 23 May 2019

As part of a broader action research project aiming to prevent both harmful sexual behaviour carried out by children and young people and child sexual exploitation (CSE) in out‐of‐home care, four focus groups were undertaken with 17 workers at three Victorian residential houses in Australia in 2017.

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