Commercial sexual exploitation

Many trafficked children are destined for sex work. But many other children who have not been trafficked are also sexually abused for commercial gain: at least 97 countries have reported cases of the commercial sexual exploitation of children. It will always be difficult to say how many children are involved. This is a clandestine and criminal activity and, given their intense feeling of shame, most children never report the abuse. The last recorded estimates indicate that as many as two million children, mainly girls but also a significant number of boys, are sexually exploited in the multi-billion dollar commercial sex trade each year. At any time, therefore, several million children will be engaged in sex work. In Southeast Asia alone, it is thought that one million children are involved.

A definition...
“Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children” can be defined as: “children, both male and female, engaging in sexual activities for money, profit, or any other consideration due to coercion or influence by any adult, syndicate or group”. The profit could go either to the child or to any third party involved in the transaction.

Children in the sex industry
Although many children are forced to enter the sex industry, others are driven to it out of economic necessity, attracted by the high incomes they can earn. In Viet Nam, for example, children working as prostitutes in central Hanoi can earn £630 (US$1,000) per month, when the average monthly wage is £15 (US$25).

The sex industry, for both adults and children, comes in many different forms, some organized, some more casual. At the more formal end of the spectrum, sex is specifically traded as a commodity – bought and sold through brothels and bars, for example, or in the form of pornographic images.

Children may also work independently, offering themselves for cash, as do many of the 10,000 to 15,000 boys selling themselves to sex tourists on the beaches of Sri Lanka.

But the sex trade can also take on more indirect forms – looser arrangements where the children offer adults a range of services, some sexual, some not, in exchange for food or clothing, or shelter or some kind of protection. There can also be relationships that are not overtly commercial, where adults – parents, teachers, priests or youth workers – who have some authority over children may also offer gifts to encourage them to keep quiet about abuse. The dividing lines between commercial and non-commercial exploitation are thus hard to draw. But at its heart, it is an exploitative relationship where adults use their superior power, physical or financial, to ensure that children comply with their sexual demands.

Working conditions
Many of the children working in the sex industry do so in horrific conditions. This is especially true of children who have been trafficked, who may be effectively imprisoned in the brothels. But most children working in brothels do so under very difficult circumstances. In Cambodia, for example, one survey of 53 girls found that most lived in small dark rooms and served five to ten customers per day. Almost all had suffered physical abuse at the hands of brothel owners and customers, the most common forms being hitting and kicking. Children in brothels have also been drugged to make them submissive – on the other hand, they may have turned to prostitution to maintain a drug habit.

Children working in brothels are also exposed continually to a wide range of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), as well as early pregnancy, and repeated abortions. But probably the greatest menace for child prostitutes nowadays is HIV/AIDS. A number of men now specifically seek out children for sex assuming that they are less likely to be infected. Some people who are HIV-positive even believe that sex with children, and particularly virgins, will remove their own infection. While many adult sex workers now insist that their clients use condoms, children are in a weaker position, either because they do not appreciate the danger, or because they are powerless to insist on condom use.

Beyond the health risk for children involved in sex work, there is also psychosocial damage, especially for children who have been trafficked. The violent and intimidating atmosphere engenders a feeling of isolation, helplessness and lack of control – heightened by the fear of arrest. There is also social stigma: children in Viet Nam, for example, say that one of their worries is that they will be recognized by people from their home village. All this can produce anxiety and depressive states, including trauma.

Child pornography
One of the most insidious and pervasive aspects of the commercial sexual exploitation of children is through the distribution of child pornography. In the past, this was distributed to a more limited extent through photographs and magazines. But the internet has opened up a plethora of new channels and drawn in many new users. Much of this material is generated as a record of sexual abuse by paedophiles and is often exchanged rather than sold. Nevertheless, such images are also available for sale on commercial sites. It also seems likely that organized crime is moving in. Since this is a clandestine activity, statistics are scarce, but the scale of the problem is evident from the result of just one operation. A child pornography ring that has since been broken up, the “Wonderland Club”, had 180 known members spread across 49 countries, including the UK, possessing 750,000 pornographic images and over 1,800 hours of digital video.

Since 1988, the United Kingdom has had explicit legislation against the production, distribution, or possession of child pornography. In the period between 1988 and 2002, 3,022 people were cautioned or prosecuted for possession of child pornography. These figures are set to increase dramatically with the results of Operation Ore - the response to 7,200 names passed on to UK police by US officials. With the fast-moving nature of the internet, legislation struggles to keep up. In addition, policing is hampered by the jurisdictional and logistical problems of sites being maintained in different countries and yet being globally accessible, and by the technical advances that protect the identity of those responsible for the sites.

Child sex tourism
Most exploitation of children takes place as a result of their absorption into the adult sex trade where they are exploited by local people. In the Philippines, for example, it is thought that nine out of ten customers of child prostitutes are Filipinos. Nevertheless the 1980s and 1990s have also seen an increase in tourism with a sexual component – sometimes deliberate “sex tourism” by paedophiles seeking out younger children, but more often by men or women who regard it as permissible to have sex with local people regardless of their age and who take the opportunity to exploit adolescents. While sex tourism is well established in many Asian countries, it is now emerging in other parts of the developing world, including West Africa.

Many of these adults do not consider themselves to be exploiters. They tell themselves that the children have actively chosen prostitution and have made the first approach, and that they come from cultures where children are naturally freer and more sexually experienced at an early age. They also argue that these children desperately need the money, so really they are doing them a favour. None of these rationalizations, however, can excuse a grievous abuse of power.