CHILD Protection & Rights > Child Protection Issues.

The basic elements of Child trafficking
There are many reasons for imprecise data on child trafficking. Trafficking is a criminal act, shrouded in secrecy. Victims are often afraid to come forward, making it difficult to get accurate numbers. In addition, there is no common methodology to count trafficking victims.
However, one estimate suggests that two million people are reportedly trafficked every year, and that 50 per cent of trafficking victims worldwide are children

What are children trafficked for?

- Labor exploitation
Children may be trafficked to work in the formal and informal economy: in agriculture, in mines, in construction, carpet industry, garment industry or in other hazardous conditions, such as handling chemicals, pesticides or operating dangerous machinery. They are often kept isolated within destination countries and are fearful of reporting the abusive work conditions to authorities.
In certain cases, children are trafficked into bonded labor. The family receives an advance payment, often structured so that ‘expenses’ are deducted from a child’s earnings in such amounts that it is nearly impossible to repay the debt.
They can also be domestic workers. Parents and children are often lured by promises of education or a good job. Once trafficked, they may find themselves stripped of their identification papers and lacking any support network. They are dependent on their exploiters for safety, food and shelter, and most endure harsh working conditions.
Read more in Part related to Child labor

- Entertainment and sports
Trafficked children work very often in Circus or dancers troops. Children, particularly young boys, have also been trafficked as camel jockeys. The sport and leisure industry is a lucrative sector where children are especially appealing for this purpose because of their small size. The use of children as jockeys in camel racing or in circus is extremely dangerous and can result in serious injury and even death. Children are often brutalized by their exploiters, deprived of their salary and food, and mentally and physically abused.

- Sexual exploitation
Sexual exploitation of children may be forced prostitution, sex tourism, pornography, socially and religiously sanctified forms of prostitution. Children, especially girls, are trafficked to work in brothels, massage parlors, prostitution rings or strip clubs, or used to produce pornographic materials. They often suffer extreme physical, sexual and psychological violence and abuse by traffickers, pimps and ‘customers’.
Read more in part related to Child Abuse .

- Begging
Children may be recruited and trafficked to earn money for others by begging or selling goods on the street. In some cases, child beggars are maimed by their captors to engender sympathy and greater charity.

- Organs Trade
Organ trafficking is specifically included in the Palermo Protocol. Although this horrific practice is nearly impossible to monitor or detect, it nonetheless is reported. Governments, Parliamentarians, Civil Society need to be aware of this clandestine phenomenon.

- Children in armed conflicts
Children’s roles in conflicts vary. They are used as messengers, porters, cooks, ‘wives’ who provide sexual services or as combatants. Some children join fighting forces due to poverty or abuse, others are forcibly recruited or abducted. Children are most vulnerable to recruitment if they are poor, separated from their families, displaced from their homes, living in a combat zone and have limited access to education or are orphaned.
Read more in part related to Children in armed conflicts.

- For and through marriage
Girls are trafficked as brides for various reasons. When poverty is acute, a girl may be regarded as an economic burden for her family and her marriage to an older man may be seen as a family survival strategy. Sometimes, the arrangements made by male migrants to find wives from their home regions result in the trafficking of child brides. There is a growing demand by older men for a young virgin bride, particularly in places where the fear and risk of HIV/AIDS infection is high.

- For and through illicit option
An increase in demand for adoption has helped to propel the unlawful trafficking of babies and young children. Sometimes mothers from developing countries sell their baby or young child, at other times the infant is stolen and mothers are told the baby was stillborn.

Children are recruited very often on false promises of education, professional training and paid employment; transported within and across national borders. Child trafficking is lucrative, it generates approximately up to $10 billion per year, and linked with criminal activity and corruption. As the UN Under-Secretary-General claimed to the International Seminar on Trafficking in Human Beings in 2000 “ the ‘cost’ of buying and selling human beings is not very high, and the risks considerably lower than that of trafficking drugs and arms.” On the contrary, impact of trafficking on children is very devastating.

Page >