Child Trafficking

What is human trafficking?
”Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

Trafficking is quite often equated with sexual exploitation, but it is important to acknowledge that not all trafficking results in the sexual exploitation of women and children. Indeed trafficking takes place for a range of exploitative purposes, including labor or fraudulent adoption.


What are the Laws, Policy efforts and perspectives in South East Asia?
Several recent legal and policy initiatives have been under- taken by different states in the region, in order to address this phenomenon. In September 2004, governments from the South Asia region organized in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a Mid-Term Review of the Implementation of the Yokohama Commitments in which a significant stock taking exercise of these important measures was promoted, and areas of priority concern were identified. Claims that ‘millions of children’ are trafficked each year, and the desire to immediately address the problem through stringent laws, and law enforcement, are repeatedly made by governments and all over the world, including in South Asia. At the same time, however, several of the initiatives are based on impoverished data, conflating trafficking with prostitution, and failing to distinguish between child trafficking and the situation of adults.


What are some of the problem with Child Trafficking?

1. Unreliable data: There is a lack of accurate statistics on how children are trafficked within South Asia, or for that matter, worldwide. Estimates at a global level mention that about 1.2 million children are trafficked for the purposes of labor or sexual exploitation globally. Even the limited information that is available in the context of South Asia focuses on trafficking in children for the purposes of sexual exploitation. The extent to which children are trafficked into sites of exploitation through labor remains largely unavailable.

The criminal and clandestine nature of child trafficking makes it difficult to gather reliable data, but there is also a great deal of confusion in the region as to what constitutes trafficking, and how to acquire accurate information when trafficking is combined with other activities.

2. A problem with definition

• Trafficking is often equated with sexual exploitation, with the result that trafficking for other purposes receives little or no attention.

• Trafficking is also often conflated with prostitution and the assumption that all prostitutes have been trafficked. This often results in misidentification and overestimation of the number of trafficked individuals.

• Trafficking can also be equated with clandestine migration, such as smuggling or illegal movement. As a result migrants may be misidentified as victims of trafficking or trafficked individuals being viewed solely as undocumented immigrants.

3. No everyone has recognized the issues:

Not all countries have subscribed to the international definition of trafficking in the Palermo factors. The consequences for its victims can include forced prostitution, slavery-like working conditions in factories or private residences, forced participation in smuggling of drugs or other illegal activities, and other inhumane conditions. Efforts to identify, analyze and combat human trafficking are complicated by the clandestine nature of the phenomenon and the resourcefulness of traffickers, who constantly shift their routes and practices to avoid detection, including by law enforcement officials and NGOs.


Is human trafficking related to other social issues?

A survey of available data indicates that the legal responses reflect one or more of the following conceptual approaches to trafficking, envisaging this reality as:

1. A moral issue
2. A law-and-order or organized crime issue
3. A human rights issue
4. A migration issue
5. A labor issue
6. A poverty and development issue
7. A gender issue
8. A public health issue


What are challenges that compromise the effective protection of trafficking?

As a result of the complexity of the issue, a number of important challenges are encountered:

• In South Asian countries, national legislation on trafficking is primarily focused on the criminalization of trafficking or related activities such as kidnapping, wrongful confinement, slavery or forced labor, rape and sexual assault.

• Laws are primarily linked with combating trafficking for the purposes of prostitution, including the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation Convention on the Trafficking of Women and Girls for the Purposes of Prostitution (‘SAARC Convention’)

• Anti-trafficking initiatives in South Asia at the regional and national levels tend to focus more onthe process of trafficking, rather than the harm to the victim that occurs during the course of trafficking. As a result, most of the initiatives concern strengthening law enforcement and border interception rather than victims protection.

• Prevention mechanisms tend to be restricted to information and awareness about trafficking, while the broader issues of safeguarding socioeconomic rights, women’s rights and children’s rights are rarely considered.

• Protection mechanisms tend to be short-term focused and, with respect to children, insufficient attention is given to their particular needs, vulnerabilities and to the protection of their rights – including in the context of their reintegration and repatriation.