• Child trafficking

Child trafficking

This document has been developed to improve efforts for providing prompt and effective care for children and adolescents lured by sexual exploiters; to ensure that exploitation is eradicated; and to allow these children and adolescents to begin to enjoy their human rights in their entirety.

The work guide attempts to develop strategies and recommendations for incorporating a rights based approach into care programmes for victims in order to promote a more effective response. This implies modifying the way in which care programmes have traditionally treated children and adolescents.

Several of the programmes developed to date have attempted to improve the health and self-esteem of the victims without eliminating the sexual exploitation as such. Other programmes seem to have mistakenly equated protection with institutionalisation and have recommended the latter as a universal measure without evaluating each victim’s particular situation. Furthermore underage persons who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation do not necessarily face the same economic, family and social conditions, and, therefore, require differentiated care.

This document provides insight into the debate on how to improve care programmes for victims and will be of use to those who, on a daily basis, have the responsibility and opportunity to rescue children and adolescents from this form of economic and sexual exploitation.

The document offers some recommendations to those working with underage persons who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation, including:

• re-examine the paradigms to consider children and adolescents as social subjects with rights and not recipients of our favours or concessions
• re-examine the myths and prejudices in regard to sexuality, sexual violence and commercial sexual exploitation 
• re-examine the myths and prejudices regarding gender-based violence and, in particular, the erroneous idea that the mothers of victims are women who are insensitive to their children’s needs and are our enemies 
• coordinate between institutions, programmes or individuals working on similar problems 
• the need to develop and include family preservation mechanisms in our plans and activities 
• the need to incorporate a comprehensive approach that meets the wide-ranging needs of the victims.
  

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