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Commercial sexual exploitation
- What is commercial sexual exploitation?
As defined in the Declaration of the First World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, held in Stockholm in 1996, commercial sexual exploitation of children is sexual abuse by an adult accompanied by remuneration in cash or in kind to the child or third person(s). Sexual exploitation of children may be forced prostitution, sex tourism, pornography, socially and religiously sanctified forms of prostitution.
FACTS AND FIGURES
- According to a recent estimate by the ILO, of the 1.39 million people worldwide who are involved in forced commercial sexual exploitation, 40 to 50 % are children.
- From 28,000 to 30,000 children under the age of 18, approximately half of them 10–14 years old, are used in prostitution in South Africa.
- An estimated 12,000 Nepalese children, mainly girls, are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation each year within Nepal or to brothels in India and other countries. |
- Prostitution
Commercial sexual exploitation of children is one of the worst forms of child abuse and child labor , it is also often linked to child trafficking
15% of the country's estimated 2.3 million prostitutes are children. With an estimate 350,000 children engaged in prostitution, the problem of child prostitution in India is widespread and quite visible. Girls are more vulnerable, especially to trafficking for sexual purposes.
See part B. On Child Trafficking - Situation in India
- Sex tourism
The World Tourism Organization (www.unwto.org ), a specialized agency of the United Nations, defines sex tourism as "trips organized from within the tourism sector, or from outside this sector but using its structures and networks, with the primary purpose of effecting a commercial sexual relationship by the tourist with residents at the destination". But it also refers to business people, transport industry workers or military personnel. Attractions for sex tourists can include reduced costs for services in the destination country, along with either legal prostitution or weak law enforcement and access to child prostitution.
Child sex tourism is the commercial sexual exploitation of children by men or women who travel from one place to another, usually from a richer country to one that is less developed, and there engage in sexual acts with an individual under 18.
A traveler may not intend to engage in sex with children while he is away from home, but he does so because a child is made easily available to him. Opportunistic exploitation, then, along with organized child sex tourism, is a critical factor compounding the complex socio-economic factors that push children into local prostitution industries. This globalized cycle is also crucially interlinked with the trafficking of women and children and the pornography industry.
More than 2.4 million tourists visit India every year and growth of the tourism industry in the country has contributed to an increase in the sexual exploitation of children by tourists. Child sex tourism is prevalent in Goa, North Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, West Bengal and in Rajasthan. Mumbai is believed to be the ‘biggest centre for paedophilic commerce in India’.
Child sex tourism involves hotels, travel agencies and tour operators and some companies openly advertise availability of child prostitutes. They have contacts with adult sex workers, rickshaw pullers, petty traders who make contact with street or other vulnerable children and bring them to tourist hotels and lodges. Children are often promised better jobs and then ‘forced’ into sex and in many cases moneylenders force parents to sell their children to repay debts.
- Pornography
There are many different kinds of child pornography materials, made available through a variety of media, but essentially they involve depicting a child or children in a manner that is intended to aid sexual arousal and gratification.
Hard-core materials depict a child engaged in real or simulated explicit sexual activities or lewdly depict parts of a child’s body.
Soft-core pornography is not sexually explicit but involves naked and seductive images. Child pornography includes not only the use of real children to make these materials but also artificially created imagery.
Child pornography is closely linked to child sex tourism. Many paedophiles claim to be documentary film producers and pick up children from the streets after tempting them with food and gifts. Child pornography is also a part of cyber pornography and is recognized as a cyber crime. Internet is being highly used by abusers to reach children.
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