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Germany
Trafficking
1,094 cases of trafficking were reported in 1996, compared to 517 in 1993. (Germany's
federal criminal investigation office, "German police swoop on suspected sex slavery ring,"
Reuters, 19 March 1998)
Germany is one the most popular destinations in Europe for women trafficked from Ukraine
and Russia. (Global Survival Network, Vladmir Isachenkov, "Soviet Womem Slavery
Flourishes,"
“No substantial study on the trafficking of children in Europe based on empirical research
has yet emerged.”
“Since this is a clandestine activity, there is little hard statistical information... It is especially
difficult to gather statistical information on children.”
—End child exploitation: Stop the traffic!, UNICEF report, July 2003
Each year, some 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide, according to the United
Nations. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe estimates that 200,000
individuals are trafficked annually from eastern Europe, a significant proportion being
children. Some become unpaid domestic servants, or work in sweatshops, but many more—
boys, girls, teenagers—are forced into prostitution and crime.
A Channel Four television documentary, “Cutting Edge: The Child Sex Trade,” screened
recently in Britain, showed how the authorities largely ignore the trafficking of children from
eastern Europe.
Romanian filmmaker Liviu Tipurita returned to Bucharest, where he met up with 15-year-old
Laurentiu, who has lived on the streets for most of his life. Three years earlier, Tipurita had
filmed the boy living in a cardboard box with only a sweatshirt to wear. Laurentiu and his
friends have a precarious existence. Of the little money they earn, mainly from begging and
selling sex, much is spent fuelling their addiction to sniffing glue.
EU Child Labour is Cheap Labour
Under age workers not just a problem for developing world.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has adopted a resolution on the issue of
child labour in Europe. It highlights the causes and forms of child labour in Europe and
outlines a number of strategies for action.
In particular, the resolution recommends the negotiation of a ban on child labour in Europe
between ETUC and the Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe
(UNICE).
According to ETUC, the aim of the resolution is to highlight the fact that child labour is an
issue that is pertinent in Europe, as well as in the developing world. The resolution states:
"One of the greatest misconceptions surrounding child labour today is that it is a
phenomenon confined to the developing world. The fact is that it exists not only in the
developing world but also here on our doorsteps, in Europe."
A study in the Czech Republic has provided evidence that children are still being sexually
exploited, mainly by sex tourists from Germany and Austria, in the border region between
the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria. In a common appeal to governments in the
region, UNICEF Austria, Czech Republic and Germany, together with the child rights
organisation ecpat, have issued a call for action and criticized governments for not fulfilling
their commitments.
A new study has been published by UNICEF, as a follow-up to a report one and a half years
ago by the German NGO KARO. The main purpose of this new report is to ascertain what
school age children in Cheb and Prague think about prostitution and child prostitution. The
author Eva Vanícková, of the Third Medical Faculty of Charles University, compiled
responses from 1,585 pupils from Cheb and Prague primary schools. The main findings of
the research are as follows:
THE BOY SEX SLAVES; KIDS OF SIX LURED INTO PROSTITUTION WITH GIFTS FROM
PIMPS AT 'HONEY-TRAP' HOMES
Nicola Porter
BOYS as young as six are being lured into prostitution in Wales - a new report reveals.
Policemen, vicars and doctors are among those paying for under-age sex, the survey
claims.
It also reveals pimps are treating child prostitutes as "human traffic" - moving them on once
they are no longer attractive to regular punters.
MOLDOVA CALLS FOR FRANCE'S AID IN COMBATTING SLAVERY
CHISINAU, July 11
Moldova will need all the help it can get to curb slave trade rampant in the former Soviet
republic, Moldovan parliament's leaders told a visiting group of French lawmakers.
Unbridled slave trade has grown to be a national disaster for Moldova, with kidnappings of
women and children almost a daily occurrence, officials said, adding that Moldova's
parliament is considering several projects to tackle the problem.
However, Moldova may not be able to deal effectively with the slave industry without help
from France and Europe as a whole, the parliament's foreign affairs committee's chairman
Andrei Neguca warned.
Up to 80 percent of all prostitutes in western Europe had been exported from Moldova, the
poorest of former Soviet republics.
Helping a Society to No Longer Accept Sex With Kids
by Jack Epstein, Special to The Christian Science Monitor
SALVADOR, BRAZIL Jose Romulo Silva Santos, a Brazilian policemen, warily eyed his
instructor, who was running down a list of social and economic problems that turn children
to prostitution. "What should I do if I see them stealing or killing somebody?" he asked the
instructor. "Be nice to them? What they need is a sound thrashing." But at the end of the
three-week course in July, Mr. Santos' skepticism had turned to sympathy. With tears in his
eyes, he told a group of fellow officers: "Now I get angry when I see adults with these kids."
Mr. Santos is one of 60 policemen from the northern Brazilian state of Bahia who recently
participated in a human rights course sponsored by the Center of Defense of Children and
Adolescents (CEDECA), a nongovernmental organization here. The class is part of a public-
awareness campaign, begun in 1995 by CEDECA and funded by UNICEF, to end child
sexual exploitation. "There is no doubt that people are beginning to change," says Helia
Barbosa, CEDECA's executive director. "We have awakened many here." Ms. Barbosa,
however, acknowledges that changing society's attitudes about child sex exploitation and
especially teen prostitutes has been an uphill struggle.
April 2000 the International Centre for Missing and Exploited asked me to research and
prepare an investigative report on the sexual exploitation of children emanating from the
Balkan Crises. I traveled to nine countries, 20 villages and cities, and made 26 stops within
a nine-week period of time in Eastern and Western Europe. Over 500 interviews were
conducted. I interviewed pimps, children, a madam, transvestites, restaurant owners,
concierges, bartenders, hotel maids, local and national police, Interpol agents, immigration
experts, US Customs agents, a pedophile expert, trafficking experts, traffickers, non-
governmental organization representatives, pornography experts, State Department
employees, Mafia, parents, prostitutes, a PHD candidate specializing in sex tourism,
members of the European Parliament, heads of charities, and more. I went to Red Light
Districts in both Amsterdam and Brussels, drove around the boulevards of Milan and Rome,
went into prostitute walkups in London's Soho, hung out with pimps and traffickers in Vienna
and Brussels, interviewed a madam in Paris, and collected names, numbers and addresses
of the pimps and traffickers in Macedonia and Albania.
As in any investigation, one has to assume that rumors are loosely repeated, numbers can
be exaggerated, facts are distorted, and proof even rarer. Skepticism and curiosity are
mandatory. My approach to this investigation was to question as many players in this drama
as possible, work my way from west to east, go into the Balkans, and cross-reference as
much as I could.
My fundamental conclusion: Children are being exploited on a multi-dimensional, multi-
leveled, multi-faceted, transcriminal, cross-cultural, and transnational manner. It is
systematically organized. In many instances, it is in conjunction with traditional organized
criminal organizations, as well as newly formed organized crime syndicates, or local criminal
gangs. This new criminal activity, trafficking in children, has changed local communities.
Some of it is transparent. Some of it is not so transparent. But, what is known is that
Europeans everywhere are talking about the children. Early in the investigation, a UK vice
squad detective stated that this phenomenon is like "a slow tidal wave moving westward." I
concluded that human-trafficking is far more profitable than the smuggling of drugs and
guns, and that no organization truly has a figure on the exact numbers of people — adults
and children — trafficked although it has been cited repeatedly to be 2 million annually.
The children caught up in this tidal wave enter it in one of four primary ways: (1) they are
kidnapped; (2) they are coerced; (3) they are sold; or (4) they leave home voluntarily based
upon a hope that the West will be better than their current situation.
Czech Republic/Germany: UNICEF Stirs Controversy With Claims Of Widespread Child
Prostitution At Border
By Kathleen KnoxThe UN Children's Fund says the Czech-German border area is becoming
a "marketplace" for child prostitution. In the report, released in Berlin, UNICEF says children
as young as infants are being coerced into prostitution, often by their parents or other
relatives.Prague, 29 October 2003 (RFE/RL) -- For 12-year-old Karel, it was poverty that
drove him into prostitution. "Before, I used to beg from the Germans in their cars. We have
no money at home," he told social workers. "Then I just drove away with them."Karel is just
one of a growing number of boys and girls living off prostitution in the Czech-German
border area, according to a report released yesterday by the UN International Children's
Education Fund (UNICEF) and Ecpat, an international children's rights organization. The
authors say the border area has become a "marketplace" for child prostitution. They said
they have observed some 500 boys and girls taking part in prostitution since they began
their research in 1996. Helga Kuhn, a UNICEF spokeswoman, said: "The situation is getting
worse.
.. to the governments of Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark to enlist the assistance of
these governments in eliminating child pornography. In the same year, an NBC
documentary, The Silent Shame, exposed international trade in pornography and was
instrumental in pressuring governments to become stricter in their enforcement. U.S.
officials specifically credit this documentary with causing an immediate drop in foreign
shipments during 1984.
Since the mid-80's, according to law enforcement officials in the U.S. and Canada, there
has been a noticeable decline in the number of new children depicted in commercially
distributed pornography. Much of the currently circulating material contains images
reproduced from publications published in the 70's and early 80's. UK law enforcement
officials point out, however, that the mid-80's also marked the advent of the camcorder and
a proportionate increase in the production of non-commercial amateur pornographic home
videos involving new children. However, commercial material recently seized in the United
States contained images of new prepubescent children from Mexico and Brazil. Some new
commercial pornography material also involves underage teens. A U.S. television
programme, Hard Copy, televised a report in February 1996 on underage girls from the U.
S. and Europe who are being photographed in Holland by a company that produces the
erotic Seventeen magazine. The girls, according to a pediatric specialist applying the
Tanner scale, The Tanner scale is a scale for identifying the stages of development in
pubescent children. ranged in age from 13 to 18.
Children frequently experience violence at the hands of police and other law
enforcement officials. Street children are especially easy targets because they are
poor, young, often ignorant of their rights, and lacking adults to whom they can turn
for assistance. They are beaten by police in order to extort money, and street girls
may be forced to provide sex to avoid arrest or to be released from police custody”
(Human Rights Watch).
There are many reasons why this new lucrative modern slavery has been expanding
and is spiraling out of control in the Czech Republic. Some reasons for this are,
“because it is possible; because it is allowed; because it is different; because they
are not capable of having a relationship with an adult’ or because they think having
sex with a child means less risk of infection with AIDS (Report on the Sexual
Exploitation of Children).” Other reasons include porous borders, corruption, the low
exchange rate of the Czech currency, the low risk of transmitted diseases, and
mostly the fact that unlike drugs, children can be sold many times for high profits.
Another reason is because children are not taken as seriously as adults when
reporting violence and abuse, they may fear to speak about the crimes adults have
committed to them. “Even when children do make reports or abuse is exposed,
perpetrators are rarely investigated or prosecuted. Those in a position to take
action may be complicit in the abuse and fearful of negative publicity”
“Parker Rossman, an expert in homosexual pedophilia, estimates the number of
active pedophiles at more than half a million all over the world. Apparently, one out
of eight men gets sexually excited about young boys” (Report on the Sexual
Exploitation of children).
How does child trafficking happen?
Trafficking of children and child prostitution has been dramatically increasing in the
Czech Republic because of the large number of poor families, increasing
unemployment, and weak legal regulations and restrictions. Furthermore, high
profits in the child trafficking trade attract organized crime rings. “The trafficking of
people is considered to be the third largest source of profits for organized crime
after the trafficking of drugs and firearms”
The worldwide phenomenon of trading children across the borders has been
organized by kidnapping organizations, national and international crime networks,
trafficking rings and in some instances by parents and individual government
workers. Organized crime networks are the most common groups involved in
recruiting and training individuals. They seek unhappy, dissatisfied, and vulnerable
children and offer them exciting and challenging lives. Children are offered money,
promises of education, and new skill or a great job opportunity. Vulnerable children
are kidnapped, bought, and smuggled under the seats of trucks in order to be
delivered to foreign customers. After their arrival to a particular destination in
Western Europe, traffickers confiscate children’s passports and visas in order to
prevent escape. Those minors who resist following the orders of their abusers are
raped, beaten, and punished until they decide to cooperate. For example, in BBC
News article, twelve year-old girl describe the dangers of prostitution flowingly: “a
man approached me one time…I didn’t want to do him and the geezer had me up by
the throat threatening to kill me, I was actually really scared, I didn’t know whether he
was going to knock me out or what.” In addition, a common tactic to silence child
prostitutes is the use of drugs. Also, through physical isolation and psychological
trauma, traffickers control assertive children from seeking help. It is not uncommon
for the abusers to threaten to harm the families and close friends of the victims in
order to make them comply with demands.
There are different ways how the trafficking networks operate. First of all, “ up front
financial arrangements between trafficking associates: verbal or written contracts
are struck between a trafficker in the country of origin and the trafficking associate in
the country of destination which stipulate a lump sum payment from one party to the
other for the sale or rental of the child based on the amount of time they used for
sexual purposes (CSCE 106-1-9).”
Children are trapped and exploited in many different ways. Many reports show that
children of Roma origins are usually forced into trafficking for prostitution by their
parents to earn extra money for the family. Roma children are easy targets for
traffickers in today’s Czech Republic for the reasons mentioned below.
Another very successful way that traffickers have been using is advertising attractive
jobs and modeling opportunities in the local newspapers for individuals under the
age of eighteen year. Hundreds of young Czech girls answered advertisements in
these newspapers for modeling in Germany or other parts of the world and ended
up as prostitutes. One typical ad used by traffickers usually sounds like this:
Girls: Must be single and very pretty. Young and tall. We invite you for work as
models, secretaries, dancers, choreographers, gymnasts. Housing is supplied.
Foreign posts available. Must apply in person.
With the increasing use of technology to market children via the Internet, it is not
complicated to attract a large number of children who are seeking a change it their
lives. Trafficking in the guise of marriage matching and pen pal clubs has been
incredibly facilitated by the Internet and is now a booming business in Europe and
the US (for more details, check Bride case). As a result, there is a massive
migration of children for entertainment and domestic work, which facilitates
trafficking in children
In most cases, children arrive in Germany by train or private car. After their arrival,
they usually have their passports confiscated to prevent escape. Traffickers use
abuse, violence, rape, or other psychological and physical trauma to control child
prostitutes. The reason why cross-border prostitution has been increasingly
attracting is because of the ease of controlling children from different countries who
do not speak the language of the destination country and are far from help. Working
as prostitutes, children are deprived of their basic human rights and experience
conditions similar to slavery. Child prostitution is a result of many social, economic,
and cultural problems such as theft, drugs, low self-esteem, dysfunctional families,
gangs, abusive relationships, kidnappings, and other struggles that these children
are experiencing.
The main reason for a high demand of Eastern European child prostitutes is
because the majority of them do not speak the destination’s language, which makes
them vulnerable and dependant on their abusers. A US State Department report
suggests, “unfamiliarity with the language, lack of money and proper documentation,
mistrust of police or other authorities, lack of information, irregular or illegal
immigration status, fear, shame, and isolation further reinforce the victim's
dependence on the traffickers.” Children who are unable to cross the borders for
many different reasons stay within the country and wait for customers for whom it is
easy to take an inexpensive flight because the Czech exchange rate is very low for
Western Europeans.
In some circumstances, corrupt individuals from the government, such as police,
social workers, immigration officials and others, cooperate with organized crime
networks in return for financial and security benefits. As a result, under-age victims
distrust those who are legally obligated to protect and help them.
In addition, the general public is unaware of the extent of commercial child trafficking
and prostitution within the country. The overall apathy and lack of action in Czech
society is putting more children in danger and condemns them to a life of struggle.
Ignoring this inhumane abuse exploits a future generation of leaders leaving a
legacy of innocence lost and lives destroyed.
At the same time, the Council of Europe, opening up to new member countries in
central and eastern Europe, the Baltic region and the Caucasus, soon became
aware of the adverse effects of this enlargement, which took the form of criminal
networks involved in sexual exploitation linking eastern and western Europe. Since
1992 the development of the Internet has also led to a huge increase in a new form
of sexual exploitation of children, using the electronic exchange of pornographic
information and pornographic films or photographs involving minors.
This trend has prompted the Council of Europe to adopt a further recommendation
on the subject in autumn 2001 and draw up a convention on cybercrime which also
covers the issue of pornography involving children.
In Budapest the Council of Europe, together with the United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF) and Hungary’s National Institute of Criminology, hold the European
Preparatory Conference for the Second World Congress against Commercial
Sexual Exploitation of Children, which took place in Yokohama.Some 150
delegations, as well as representatives of the European Union, Interpol, NGOs,
Internet service providers, tourism and the media, attended the preparatory
conference. Participants adopted a regional Action Plan for Europe and Central
Asia to be submitted to the Yokohama Congress.
In September 2001 a gruesome discovery was made in London's River Thames. The
hideously mutilated torso of a small black boy was found floating through the city. The boy's
arms, legs, and head had all been hacked off. So began a stranger-than-fiction detective
story that led U.K. investigators into a macabre netherworld of witchcraft and child sacrifice.
Murder squad detectives had nothing to go on: There were no reports of a missing child
and no witnesses or crime scene. No face, fingerprints, or dental records remained that
could help identify the boy. The police simply called him Adam. He was believed to have
been between four and seven years old.
The investigation to discover Adam's true identity and bring his killers to justice is the
subject of a National Geographic Explorer documentary, to be aired on the National
Geographic Channel in the U.S. this weekend. It tells how the latest advances in forensic
science led detectives across two continents in their dogged quest to solve Adam's murder.
"It is one of the most astonishing, horrible stories to happen in years and years in this
country," said Richard Hoskins, who worked on the police investigation team. The autopsy
report concluded that Adam's throat had been slit. His body was then deliberately drained
of blood. With no clear leads, murder squad detectives at Scotland Yard in London called in
forensic experts who used the latest scientific methods to examine Adam's bones, stomach,
and intestines for clues. What they discovered became central to the investigation. Ken
Pye, a forensic geologist at the University of London, analyzed Adam's bones for trace
minerals that are absorbed from food and water. Levels of trace minerals vary depending
on which part of the world a person comes from. Pye's tests revealed levels of strontium,
copper, and lead two and a half times higher than would be normally expected in a child
living in England. Using these trace minerals as his guide, Pye gradually narrowed down
Adam's likely geographic origin to West Africa. Stomach Contents Extensive analysis of the
contents of Adam's stomach and intestines pointed detectives in a similar direction. The
forensic team found a strange, unidentifiable plant material. There was also a sandlike
mineral and a substance that resembled small clay pellets. Added to this bizarre mixture
were tiny particles of gold. Plant anatomists were brought in to help identify the plant. The
closest match, it turned out, was the Calabar bean—an obscure but highly toxic type of
climbing vine from West Africa. This proved a major breakthrough in the investigation, as it
linked Adam's death to witchcraft in a region that's regarded as the birthplace of voodoo.
Wade Davis, an anthropologist and explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic
Society, says dozens of poisons are traditionally used in West Africa.
A 56 year old English man has been sentenced to five years in prison for making
sex trips to Africa to abuse young children.
The 56-year-old made "harrowing" films of the abuse, said Judge Roger Chapple,
at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court...Kilpatrick, banned from Africa and other sex
tourism hotspots, is the first man to be jailed using laws to prosecute those who
abuse abroad.
Obviously the arrest of this despicable individual is a relief but the reality is that in
Africa alone there are millions of children being abused in this way whilst the
number of prosecutions is relatively small. In September this year, News 24.com
published a piece "Sex with kids a bargain in SA" where a Swiss lawyer was fined
R10,000 ($1,600) for having sex with a 16 or maybe 14 year old boy.
One of the most popular destinations for sex tourists is Gambia and last November,
a Norwegian man was tried in Oslo for sexually abusing a 12 year old Gambian
boy. In 2000 I was in Banjul for a 4 day conference attended by a number of Niger
Delta women's groups. Each time we left the hotel we were all harassed by young
men which naturally irritated us all to the point that some of the women refused to
leave the hotel. However I wanted to know how the whole sex tourism thing worked
so I started a series of conversations with some of the young men working in the
"tourist shops". I discovered that first the sex tourists were both men and women
but it was the men (mostly from Northern European countries such as Germany,
Sweden, Norway etc) who "went" for the young girls and boys. I was told that many
of the tourists came every year and stayed for up to 3 months living with a chosen
boy or girl. In some cases they would even take the child back to their home country.
They told me that everyone, the police, government officials, embassies all knew
what was happening but did nothing. One of the ways in which the Europeans took
the children back to their homes was by promising to give the children an education
and support his or her family back home. It was only when the child was in Germany
or Norway that they discovered they were in fact to be sexual slaves. One young
man told me he knew of someone who was kept prisoner for over a year in Germany
before he was able to escape and seek help and eventually he returned to Gambia.
Each year, some 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide, according to the United
Nations. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe estimates that 200,000
individuals are trafficked annually from eastern Europe, a significant proportion being
children. Some become unpaid domestic servants, or work in sweatshops, but many more—
boys, girls, teenagers—are forced into prostitution and crime.
A Channel Four television documentary, “Cutting Edge: The Child Sex Trade,” screened
recently in Britain, showed how the authorities largely ignore the trafficking of children from
eastern Europe.
Romanian filmmaker Liviu Tipurita returned to Bucharest, where he met up with 15-year-old
Laurentiu, who has lived on the streets for most of his life. Three years earlier, Tipurita had
filmed the boy living in a cardboard box with only a sweatshirt to wear. Laurentiu and his
friends have a precarious existence. Of the little money they earn, mainly from begging and
selling sex, much is spent fuelling their addiction to sniffing glue.
The documentary exposed how Western pedophiles were coming to Romania posing as
tourists, and were then procuring boys for underage sex. “Tom,” from Britain, had originally
come to Bucharest in the aftermath of the collapse of the Ceausescu regime to work in an
orphanage. Using hidden cameras, Tom was shown discussing his Internet business—a
web site offering to introduce men to Romanian boys. His clients came from throughout
western Europe—Britain, Holland, Switzerland. He boasted that he had even supplied boys
to a German judge.
From Bucharest, Tipurita travelled to Milan. In one district of Italy’s most prosperous city,
the film showed how Romanian boys, some as young as 10, were being pimped for
underage sex, often by their own fathers, brothers and cousins.
Posing as a potential customer, and using a secret night-vision camera, Tipurita asked one
young boy how much it would cost for one hour. He said he would have to ask his father.
Thirty euros ($35), came the reply. Suddenly, a police car drove by, but they were only
interested in looking for “illegal immigrants,” Tipurita commented.
International federation Terre des Hommes estimates that 6,000 children between the ages
of 12 and 16 are trafficked from eastern Europe each year, with more than 650 being
forced to work as sex slaves in Italy. The price of a girl trafficked to Italy can be between
$2,500 and $4,000, with up to $10,000 being paid if she is a virgin. According to the French
human rights organisation, Albania is the county most involved in the sex trade, with women
and children being lured to go to the West with false promises of marriage, jobs or
education. When they get there, there is no husband, no job and no education. Alone in a
foreign land without any means of support, violence and coercion ensure they are soon
earning money for their new “owners.”
In Toender (Tønder), South Jutland (Jylland) a father rented his then 10 year old
daughter and her little sister (8) to pedophile men. The father has had sex with the
daughter according to a Norwegian newspaper. He was caught by police in Nov.
2005 along with at least 6 others.
This case escalates and on the 26th of Jan. 2006 12 men are arrested and even
more are expected to be arrested as investigation has got new leads from the father.
It is an unusually abominable case. A father has held his 11 year old daughter as
sex-slave and prostituted her against payment from pedophile men in Denmark. The
men had sex with the girl while the father was looking.
The police started their research in August 2005 because of a anonymous tip. After
that police started to bug the fathers phone. A client was on his way to molest the
girl, and it was decided to arrest the father immediately to rescue the girl from
additional rape.
Six men were accused or suspected of sexual assaults. Two of the abusers have
been sentenced only one year imprisonment. That is far too little, but Danish laws
obviously do not protect children enough against rape of adults.
The girl and her younger sister lived with their pimp father. Both daughters are now
cared for by the social authorities.
This is the biggest sex child abuse in Danish history. It is still unfolding. Even men
from Germany have been to visit and abuse the girls.
One of the men is the 61 year old accountant Kjeld Erling Nielsen from Bramming
who has been sentenced one year imprisonment for sex abuse of the older sister.
Another of the arrested men is the 74 year old Gerhart Trip from Abild near Toender
(Tønder). He has been sentenced 16 months imprisonment
Paedophilia in France
Harrowing scenes from a young girl's birthday, in which she and other children were
allegedly surrounded by naked adults, were recounted during testimony on
Wednesday in a paedophilia trial that has horrified France.
Alain D, one of 66 people accused of involvement in a paedophile ring, recalled the
day a child named Marine V turned six, adding more chilling testimony to the trial.
Most defendants deny any wrongdoing.
Investigators say 45 children - aged six months to 14 years - were abused by their
parents or their acquaintances from 1999 to 2002, in some cases in exchange for
small amounts of money, food, cigarettes or alcohol.
Marine V is 10 years old now. Victims and suspects cannot be identified by full
names because of French laws designed to preserve the anonymity of child victims.
Marine V is the daughter of two top suspects in the case, who were said to have
organised the paedophile ring, and hosted adults and lured other children to their
home in the western city of Angers.
Their pants were down
On Marine's birthday, her father - Franck V - and her grandfather, Philippe V, were
at home with the children, Alain D told the court.
"I went into the bedroom, I saw Franck and Philippe with their pants down. They
were touching the children," said Alain.
He faces a maximum of five years if convicted of sexual assault and failing to report
criminal acts.
Alain D detailed graphic accounts of sexual acts he witnessed involving Marine and
other children, boys and girls alike.
"Why did you watch?" asked the prosecutor, Eric Marechal, visibly stunned.
Alain D responded: "I was paralysed."
Jacqueline, his wife, told the court that, at the time, she said: "We have to intervene."
But they did nothing.
Another accused, Jacky H, testified on Wednesday that he had taken part in group
sex at the home of Franck V.
Children were crying
"Franck was caressing the children," said Jacky H, accused of rape and sexual
assault. He detailed other graphic sexual acts.
"The children were crying. Some were dressed, others were undressed."
The comment evoked a cry from Franck V: "It's false!"
In all, 39 men and 27 women are accused of taking part in a paedophilia ring in
which babies and children were allegedly raped, sexually abused and prostituted by
their parents for food or money.
A GIRL of 16 posed as a 13-year-old in an internet chat room. She was brave and
daring to catch a registered paedophile, which resulted in bringing the pedophile to
Gloucester court the 25th of January 2006.
Robert Jeffrey, 37, tried to lure her to meet with him and then she called the police.
Jeffrey admitted sexually grooming a girl on the internet. He had failed to notify his
change of address on the sex offenders register, jumped bail and had a forged tax
disc in his car.
Gloucester crown court gave him a three year community order making him attend
sex offender courses and a 10 year sex offences prevention order.
The girl told the Mirror: "I am proud of what I did."
It was bravely done, but this is not recommended for all children to follow, as
paedophiles can be dangerous. If you want to do such contact police BEFORE you
meet the pedophile, so you have police assistance and do not act alone
Gambian child protection agencies have just completed a one-week camp in the
capital, Banjul, to sensitize children to the risks of commercial sexual exploitation in
the tourist-friendly, impoverished country.
Hundreds of schoolchildren attended the U.N. funded camp where they were asked
to go back to their schools, homes, and neighborhoods to explain to others the
problems of abuse they face.
Camp coordinator Famara Darboe said European tourists and Gambians use
children for sex and or pornography because it is cheap and they can get away with
it. He says criminals who organize the transactions make money, while the children
have little to show for it but the scars that remain with them for life.
"The children are being used as commodities for perpetrators for their financial
gains. So the children protection alliance took it as its responsibility to sensitize
people about what this is and the impact on children," Mr. Darboe says.
Mr. Darboe says the European perpetrators are pedophiles. Meanwhile, he says
research shows there are sordid reasons as well as to why some West Africans
seek to have sex with impoverished Gambian children.
"It is believed that most people have the concept that once you have sex with
children it can prevent you from HIV/AIDS or having sex with children if you are HIV.
positive can cure it. This is why many people are going for it," ," Mr. Darboe says.
There are no established statistics on the scope of the problem, but in tourist areas,
many foreigners and Gambians can be seen negotiating with criminals known for
offering sex from children.
One child who attended the camp said he now understood the horror of the problem
and that he would urge families and children, that whatever the immediate financial
gain they would be getting, it was just not worth it.
"Every child who is being abused or every child who is being sexually abused, it is
abused potential. Show me the condition of the children and I will tell you the future of
your country. So if you adults out there look at us being abused, what future do you
think the Gambia will be like?," the child asks.
The head of Gambia's main child protection association, Jalamang Camara, says
the government has passed laws to prevent tourism sex abuse and to punish
Gambian offenders, but he says too often, police are part of the criminal networks.
"Government should ensure that they train law enforcement officials so that they are
not corrupt. They have to work very hard that laws are implemented. It's not only
beautifying books because if not we are compromising our future," Mr. Camara
says.
Another child at the camp said she was ready to do her part, but she also asked for
outside help, saying the problem is getting worse, not better.
"It is really getting serious. If we are affected then we have nowhere to go. We are
seeking help from the government, the entire stakeholders. The children will take
part here, if we have help," another child says.
The Top 10 reasons why other kids have run away are:
Kicked out - Mostly the reason why kids leave home isn't because they 'runaway,' it
is because they get kicked out.
Sexual Abuse - someone in your house is made to do sexual things, maybe you.
Violence - someone in your house gets hurt a lot, maybe you.
Alcohol or Drugs - someone in your house drinks alcohol lots or uses drugs to get
high.
Verbal Abuse - people yell or scream at you all the time.
Neglect - you don't get basic stuff other kids do, like food or it may be as if you aren't
even there and no one cares about you.
Crime - someone in your house does crime like stealing from people or beating
them up.
Stress - someone is always on your case putting pressure on you to do something
all the time like cleaning up or doing your homework.
School - you get bullied at school and can't put up with it anymore or you get in really
big trouble at school and just can't go home because of what might happen when
your parents find out.
Someone is Gone - this could be because they died, or your patents get divorced or
separated. It also could be an older brother or sister moved out of home.Everyone is
different! These are some reasons, but everyone has their own reason.
All these things are bad and you should do something about it. But running away can
be worse!
What you can do:
There are two kinds of adults / grown ups who can make things better:
Someone you know and trust (examples are: a teacher, school guidance officer, an
auntie or uncle, grandparents or someone you know from the neighbourhood). How
to get them to help: ask to talk to them about a secret away from anyone else. Tell
them what is happening and ask for their help.
Someone whose job is to help kids like you (examples are: police, telephone help
lines, child welfare workers). How to get them to help: the good thing about asking
these people for help is they are on your side! It is their job to protect you and help
you be safe and happy. Most of the time it is free to phone a help line or the police;
you just have to find out what number to call.
Ask in the Forum for Advice: You can ask in the Homeless Forum where streetkids
and homeless people as well as Social Workers can answer your questions or just
have a chat: Homeless ForumHere are the best phone numbers to call around the
world:
They are Confidential - which means they won't tell anyone about your call unless you
want them to talk to somebody for you, or you are in danger.
They are open 24 Hours - it doesn't matter what time you call them, there will always
be someone there. Sometimes the line is busy, you just have to call back again.
What number to call:
Get a pen and paper when you call them:
As they may have another phone number or other stuff you want to write down.
Country
Organization/Link
Phone Number
Australia Kids Help Line 1800 55 1800
Belgium Kinder en Jongeren Telefoon 078/15 14 13
Canada Kids Help Phone
Jeunesse, J'?ute 1-800-668-6868
Hong Kong Youth Outreach 852-9088-1023
Ireland ISPCC 1-800-666-666
Israel Youth Help Line 1800-654-111
Italy Telefono AzzurroRosa 030/226363 - 2420845
Finland Youth Crisis Point 09 753 5121
Netherlands Hotline for Kids in Trouble (+31) 06-0432
New Zealand Youthline 0800 376-633
Northern Ireland ChildLine 0800 1111
South Africa Childline 08000 55555
United Kingdom ChildLine 0800 1111
United States National Swithchboard 1-800-621-4000
If you are going to run away, the best place to go is to a friend's house. Forget living
on the street it is horrible! Maybe even worse than how things are at home.
UK leads the world in fight against online child abuse images
New figures from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) 2005 Annual Report launched
today reveal that just 0.4 per cent of child abuse images on the internet are hosted in
the UK, down from 18 per cent in 1997.
Peter Robbins, Chief Executive, IWF, said: “UK internet users deserve to know that
the UK has an excellent track record of successfully combating online child abuse
images.”
During 2005 the IWF processed around 24,000 reports from the public, more than
ever, and reported a record 6,000 cases to the authorities of child abuse images
hosted abroad. Now in its tenth year, the IWF is working increasingly with partner
organisations overseas to share its dynamic approach and best practice.
The IWF is the only authorised organisation in the UK operating an internet ‘hotline’
for the public and IT professionals to report their exposure to potentially illegal child
abuse images hosted on the internet anywhere in the world and criminally obscene
and racist content hosted in the UK.
One of the main services the IWF provides is a universal notice and takedown
service of illegal content within its remit to all service providers in the UK. It also
provides a comprehensive list of Child Abuse Image (CAI) URL’s for organisations
such as ISPs, mobile network operators and search engines to block access to
potentially illegal child abuse images.
Key Figures from 2005:
23,658 reports from the public processed by IWF
6,128 reports made to law enforcement agencies
Only 0.4% of potentially illegal child abuse content hosted in the UK
0% of criminally obscene content hosted in the UK
0% of criminally racist content hosted in the UK
40% of child abuse content traced to the US
28% of child abuse content traced to Russia
17% of child abuse content traced to Asian countries
13% of child abuse content traced to Europe
156 intelligence reports relating to UK offenders were passed to police
211 newsgroups are now listed as potentially illegal in the UK
226 notices were issued to internet service providers to take down a further 12,777
images that were published in newsgroups
47% of child abuse websites were commercial Pay-Per-View
70% of Pay-Per-View websites are hosted in Russia or the US
Every report to IWF hotline processed within 24 hours
The innocent are always the victims who pay the highest price, whether it be as a
result of acts of terrorism, fiscal policies or inadequate legislation. In this case,
Europe's xenophobic stance against immigrants (which it needs anyway to shore up
its ailing social security systems), too visible in France where interior minister
Nicolas Sarkozy referred to immigrants as “scum” gives a huge operating space to
traffickers – because immigrants will come in, if not legally then illegally.
While there is a market, there will be professionals. With human trafficking comes
more sinister practices such as the trafficking of children for sexual exploitation. A
report generated by the UN at Geneva has alerted that Greece may be a porous
eastern frontier over which children are pouring into Europe to become victims of
sexual slavery.
Juan Miguel Petit, UN Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution
and Child Pornography visited Greece recently and concluded that “The huge and
dispersed coastline makes Greece an attractive destination or a gateway to the
European Union,” adding that “This big flow of people on the move brought along
challenges that the country was not prepared to face.”
Neither Greece, nor any country in the EU, where there are first-class, second-class
and third-class citizens, labeled because of the accident called a birthplace, denied
equal rights, many of them living a nightmare of semi-legal status in which the
demands to pay are high and the right to payment nil.
This, from a Europe which spent centuries enslaving populations, holding them
down, refusing to educate them while they stole the natural resources, drew lines on
maps and slaughtered those who rose up in protest.
While Europe does not accept that immigration is both necessary and inevitable,
integrate its immigrant population and guarantee full rights to the families of
immigrants, receiving them as full citizens, a parallel system will flourish under which
the trafficking of human beings will continue.
These days a European sexual pervert need not pay thousands of dollars to get on a
plane and perpetrate his warped and deviant acts overseas where a child has been
rented out by the day by alcoholic or depraved parents – these days it is easier to
go to the nearest public square and speak to the man hanging around on the street
corner.
This perversion of society and violation of human rights (especially against innocent
children) is the direct result of the Fortress Europa policy.
The innocent are always the victims who pay the highest price, whether it be as a
result of acts of terrorism, fiscal policies or inadequate legislation. In this case,
Europe's xenophobic stance against immigrants (which it needs anyway to shore up
its ailing social security systems), too visible in France where interior minister
Nicolas Sarkozy referred to immigrants as “scum” gives a huge operating space to
traffickers – because immigrants will come in, if not legally then illegally.
While there is a market, there will be professionals. With human trafficking comes
more sinister practices such as the trafficking of children for sexual exploitation. A
report generated by the UN at Geneva has alerted that Greece may be a porous
eastern frontier over which children are pouring into Europe to become victims of
sexual slavery.
Juan Miguel Petit, UN Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution
and Child Pornography visited Greece recently and concluded that “The huge and
dispersed coastline makes Greece an attractive destination or a gateway to the
European Union,” adding that “This big flow of people on the move brought along
challenges that the country was not prepared to face.”
Neither Greece, nor any country in the EU, where there are first-class, second-class
and third-class citizens, labeled because of the accident called a birthplace, denied
equal rights, many of them living a nightmare of semi-legal status in which the
demands to pay are high and the right to payment nil.
This, from a Europe which spent centuries enslaving populations, holding them
down, refusing to educate them while they stole the natural resources, drew lines on
maps and slaughtered those who rose up in protest.
While Europe does not accept that immigration is both necessary and inevitable,
integrate its immigrant population and guarantee full rights to the families of
immigrants, receiving them as full citizens, a parallel system will flourish under which
the trafficking of human beings will continue.
These days a European sexual pervert need not pay thousands of dollars to get on a
plane and perpetrate his warped and deviant acts overseas where a child has been
rented out by the day by alcoholic or depraved parents – these days it is easier to
go to the nearest public square and speak to the man hanging around on the street
corner.
This perversion of society and violation of human rights (especially against innocent
children) is the direct result of the Fortress Europa policy.
The European Union welcomes the work done by Ms. Calcetas-Santos, Special
Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children. The Union also
welcomes the opportunity, which will be given to the international community at the
Yokohama Conference against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (17 to
20 December 2001) to take stock of action in this sector since the Stockholm
Congress. Like the UNGA Special Session devoted to children, the Yokohama
Conference will also be an opportunity to make further progress.
Unfortunately, sexual exploitation is not the only form of exploitation of children.
According to ILO estimates, 250 million children aged from 5 to 14 work to earn a
living. Nearly half of those children work full time every day of the year and 70% of
them do so in a dangerous environment. An even larger number of children are
involved in "invisible" work or are exploited in conditions of virtual slavery. The
eradication of any form of exploitation of children must be a priority for all States.
The European Union calls on those States, which have not yet done so to ratify
Convention No 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor and calls on the States,
which are parties to it, to begin carrying out their commitments under that instrument
immediately.
International Law Enforcement Effort Targets Child Exploitation
Law enforcement agencies from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the
United States are creating a new Web site as a tool to help in the campaign against
the online exploitation of children.
Announcement of the initiative was made in London, according to a January 26
press release from the U.S. partner in the effort, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE).
The site, http://www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com/ instructs visitors in reporting
suspected child exploitation and provides other safety and resource information
about organizations involved in the international effort to protect youngsters from
sexual predators.
ICE’s participation in this task force is in line with its ongoing campaign Operation
Predator, which works to protect children from sex offenders, child sex tourists,
Internet child pornographers and human traffickers. The 18-month-old operation has
resulted in more than 4,800 arrests.
The text of the ICE press release follows:
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
News Release
UK, US, AUSTRALIAN & CANADIAN LAW ENFORCEMENT BAND TOGETHER
TO TARGET ONLINE CHILD EXPLOITATION
International law enforcement partnership launches new website for reporting,
resources
LONDON — Law enforcement and technology industry officials in the UK unveiled
today a new international website created by the Virtual Global Task Force, a
partnership lead by the UK National Crime Squad (NCS) that includes NCS, U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
the Australian High Tech Crime Centre, and Interpol.
The site, at www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com, includes information on how to report
suspected child exploitation in the UK, US, Canada and Australia; as well as related
safety and resource information from partner organizations such as the National
Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the United States.
Jim Gamble, Deputy Director General of the UK’s National Crime Squad, and Chair
of the Virtual Global Taskforce, said, “The Virtual Global Taskforce is a unique
partnership in the history of law enforcement. Internet-users access a worldwide
service so we must tackle abuse from a worldwide perspective. Strategic
partnerships such as this are vital to our success.”
ICE’s participation in the Virtual Global Task Force is part of Operation Predator, a
Department of Homeland Security initiative to protect children from criminal alien
sex offenders, child sex tourists, Internet child pornographers, and human traffickers.
Since Operation Predator began in July 2003, more than 4,800 individuals have
been arrested nationwide. Foreign law enforcement, acting on ICE leads, have
arrested more than 860 individuals.
Additional information about Operation Predator is available on the Web at http:
//www.ice.gov/.
ICE encourages the reporting of suspected child predators and any suspicious
activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE. This hotline is staffed around
the clock by investigators.
Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, at
1-800-843-5678 or http://www.cybertipline.com.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was established in March 2003
as the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. ICE is
comprised of five integrated divisions that form a 21st century law enforcement
agency with broad responsibilities for a number of key homeland security priorities.
Time to Chip Away at Male Demand for Child Sex -- Experts
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
YOKOHAMA, Japan, Dec 18 (IPS) - When Denise Ritchie, a 45-year-old New
Zealand lawyer, called on men in her country to participate in a public event to
highlight the dominant role that men play among child sex abusers, she was asked
to ''get lost'' .
That reaction was only one of the many hostile responses that local newspapers ran
in their letters section in October, following the publication of a news story that had
Ritchie urging the men to participate in a 'Day of Shame' to protest the commercial
sexual exploitation of children.
She had proposed observing the 'Day of Shame' to underscore the role men play in
the sexual abuse of young people - indeed, she said that between 1996 and 2000,
99.1 percent of the convicted cases of child sex abuse in New Zealand involved
male offenders.
Other letter writers, all of them men, declared they were ''saddened and angered'' by
Ritchie's initiative, and insisted that men should ''stay proud'', instead of bowing to
''the request to turn Father's Day into a day of shame.''
Since then, Ritchie, who has been dubbed by the local press as the ''Shame Dame,''
has also learnt a fundamental lesson: a tough battle lies ahead for those determined
to prevent children from sex abuse by drawing attention to the ones who drive the
demand -- the sex exploiter.
''If we are not prepared to deal with the issue of demand, we will not stamp out the
commercial sexual exploitation of children'' said Ritchie, who as a child rights
activist has been championing this issue since 1999. ''We need a clear strategy to
deal with demand.''
However, those like Ritchie appear to be a minority at the ongoing Second World
Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children here. Much of the
discussions, debates and awareness efforts address the child victims of the sex
trade, who run into more than a million in Asia, and other issues, for instance.
''The demand issue has been completely sidelined,'' affirmed Gracy Fernandes, a
child rights activists from India. ''There are very few non-governmental organisations
dealing with it, very few strong statements to take it up here.''
''It has to be made a central issue, a conscious topic,'' added Fernandes, research
director at the College of Social Work in Mumbai, India. ''The exploiters cannot be
ignored in trying to protect the victims.''
But during the times the demand issue has been addressed here at the Yokohama
congress, there has already a significant change from the way the sex exploiter is
being described and analysed. According to discussions at the workshops here, the
sex exploiter does not fit into a single profile. This is unlike the first world congress
on child exploitation in Yokohama in 1996, where the sex offender was largely seen
as a paedophile, experts and activists say.
''There are people (adult and child, male and female) who sexually exploit children in
many different ways, for many different reasons and in many different social
contexts,'' states a conference backgrounder on the sex exploiter.
''If there is to be real progress in eliminating commercial sexual exploitation of
children, and indeed non-commercial forms, then this diversity must be recognised,
understood and used as a basis for programming,'' it adds.
Swedish psychologist Anders Nyman illustrated this with evidence about sex
exploiters worldwide, most of who are male. ''One-third of all sex crimes against
children committed globally are by those who are under 18 years,'' said Nyman, who
works for the international child rights lobby Save the Children.
Equally significant is for society to dispel the myth that foreign tourists are key
players driving the demand in developing countries, added child rights activist Juan
Manuel Garland, pointing to the countries in Latin America as examples.
''In Brazil and Peru, there are local tourists who seek young girls for sex,'' revealed
Garland, a coordinator at Save the Children's South America office. ''They believe
that younger is better because it also gives the men more power, more control over
the girls.''
Garland says the Latin American cultural concept of machismo is a key factor
behind such behaviour. ''Machismo definitely contributes to this in other places too,
like Chile, Nicaragua and other parts of Central America. You hear it in the speech
of the men.''
The sex tourist, however, has been notorious in Costa Rica and the Dominican
Republic.
In countries like Kenya and South Africa, on the other hand, men continue to exploit
girls living in poverty. These exploiters, called ''sugar daddies,'' are largely older
men who ''provide youthful sexual partners, including adolescents, with long-term
financial support of gifts, accommodation or access to entertainment and a lifestyle
that would be otherwise beyond the youth's reach,'' according to the conference
backgrounder.
''Combating the sex exploiter requires more than a legal approach,'' asserted Vitit
Muntarbhorn, a child rights expert from Thailand. ''We need an integrated strategy to
combat demand.''
Such efforts have to include cultural and social action too, added Vitit, who teaches
law at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. ''We have also to acknowledge how the
demand has changed since Stockholm, largely due to advances in technology, like
the Internet, and the increase in trafficking.''
But activists like Fernandes from India and Garland from Peru admit that there has
been little effort in their respective regions to combat demand. ''Even when we
sought funding for a national study on who the exploiter is, to stop the demand for
child sex in India, we did not get any money,'' conceded Fernandes.
For Ritchie, the success of the Yokohama congress depends on what commitments
and the actions are made across nations to eliminate the demand for child sex. ''We
can't deceive the children. How can you end the commercial sexual exploitation
without eliminating demand?''
THE INCIDENCE OF COMMERCIAL SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN IN
THE BALTIC SEA REGION
Statistical data on the issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children are
lacking in every country in the Baltic Sea Region. The information below has been
obtained partly from the experts of the Group and partly by the Swedish Special
Group's own surveys and interviews made i. a. during travels to some of the
Member States. The following compilation shows some of the data which have been
possible to gather during the time available and with limited resources. Even though
some Member States do not have any information about the existence of
commercial sexual exploitation of children, the Expert Group has information that
some perpetrators come from these states.
Denmark It is known to the Police that occasionally there are prostitutes of the age
of 15 or 16 in the streets in Denmark (Danish National Police).
Estonia About 60 % of the girls who prostitute themselves in Tallinn are between 15
and 19 years old (National Aids Prevention Centre).
Germany It is known, that in Germany there are prostitutes under the age of 16
(mainly street children and/or drug abusers).
Latvia The number of prostitutes is approximately 3 000, about 10-12 % of all the
prostitutes in Latvia are juveniles. 30 % of all juvenile prostitutes are under the age
of 16 .These are the most demanded in brothels. All prostitution in Latvia is said to
be organised (National Report "Protection of the rights of women in the republic of
Latvia").
Lithuania Several social workers have confirmed that there is child prostitution at the
railway station in Vilnius. Child prostitution also exists at the airport and at some
hotels. The youngest girls are said to be only 11 or 12 years of age (Study made by
ECPAT on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in some Eastern European
Countries).
Poland The number of children engaged in prostitution increases every year. In
1995 the number of girls 12 to 14 years of age engaged in prostitution was
estimated to 100-150. The number had increased to 400 in 1996. Women and
juveniles are being trafficked from Poland to the German borders. Police sources
indicate that apart from occasional prostitution, the prostitution of minors working
through specialised escort services is also growing (the Police Headquarters
Criminal Bureau in Warsaw).
Girls and boys under the age of 18 working as prostitutes at the Polish-German
border are kept like prisoners in barracks. There is a great demand for young
pregnant girls (the Deaconess Institute in Helsinki in Finland, Umbrella Network).
Russia Hundreds of children are working in the "sex business" in St Petersburg
alone. Juvenile girls are being sold to different south European countries for $ 12
000 per person. There are 4909 teen age prostitutes registered in St Petersburg.
Some young boys of the age of 13 or 14 are living at the Moscow railway station in
St Petersburg. They are being picked up by pimps and brought to a shed where
they are to provide sexual services (St Petersburg Child Protection Centre).
A new element in the sex business is now that the pimps are, as a result of a police
raid in 1997, only 13 or 14 years old. The young pimps have to give a part of their
income to the older imprisoned pimps (Article in VNE ZAKONA, no 3/96).
A dramatic increase in the number of children with sexually transmitted diseases
have occurred in Kaliningrad (Aids Prevention Centre).
Sweden There is no information about prostitutes under the age of 18. Almost all
female prostitutes are providing sexual services in order to finance their drug
addiction. There is however some information which shows that young girls, over 18
years of age, are providing sexual services, simply to get "pocket money". There is
a risk that younger girls could be pulled into this kind of prostitution (National
Criminal Investigation Department).
2.1 The Task Force on organised crime in the Baltic Sea Region
The Task Force has provided the Expert Group with information about the existence
of child prostitution and/or child pornography in the form of organised crime in the
Member States.
The majority of the Member States have informed that child prostitution and child
pornography do not exist in the form of organised crime. Norway has stated that
child prostitution exists to a minor extent, but there is no evidence for calling it
generally speaking a form of organised crime in Norway. Poland has stated that
there have been a few cases of child prostitution in the form of organised crime.
Latvia has stated that there are minor prostitutes that have been sent abroad and
that this trafficking might be connected with organised crime.
Germany has stated that there may be some isolated attempts to organise child
prostitution on a gang basis. Russia has underlined that the problem of commercial
sexual exploitation of children is of importance and deserves consideration at an
expert level within the frameworks of the WGDI.
On the issue of child pornography the Member States indicate that offenders act on
their own and are not organised. Some offenders have collected large amounts of
pornographic material which they exchange.
The Russian Federation extends over 6,591,100 sq mi (17,070,949 sq km) and is
bounded by Norway and Finland (NW); by Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, and Ukraine
(W); by Georgia and Azerbaijan (SW); and by Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China
along the southern land border. The Kaliningrad Region is an exclave on the Baltic
Sea bordered by Lithuania and Poland. Moscow is the capital and largest city.
While there have been positive economic trends in Russia, the benefits are slow to
filter down to ordinary people. Wages are low, inequality continues to rise and
poverty is at significant levels, particularly among families with children or single–
parent families. Social welfare benefits are being progressively eroded and the
informal privatization of education and health services continues.
Russia is a major source of women trafficked globally for the purpose of sexual
exploitation. Russia is also a significant destination and transit country for persons
trafficked for sexual and labor exploitation from regional and neighboring countries
into Russia, and on to the Gulf states, Europe, Asia, and North America. The ILO
estimates that 20 percent of the five million illegal immigrants in Russia are victims
of forced labor, which is a form of trafficking. There were reports of trafficking of
children and of child sex tourism in Russia. Internal trafficking from rural to urban
areas remained a problem.
The Government of Russia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the
elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Russia is
placed on Tier 2 Watch List for a second consecutive year for its failure to show
evidence of increasing efforts to combat trafficking, particularly in the area of victim
protection and assistance. A new general witness protection program may improve
care of trafficking victims who participate in an investigation or protection. While the
central government sustained its commitment and recognition to address trafficking,
more remains to be done. The government made particular progress in the area of
enforcement, increasing investigations and prosecutions under the new
amendments to the Criminal Code. It took important preliminary steps to raise
awareness among law enforcement and the public through a national training
program and development of a training manual. However, the government must
develop mechanisms to protect Russian and foreign trafficking victims immediately,
administer its new witness protection legislation, and target public awareness
programs at potential victims, particularly regarding recruitment scams inherent in
employment ads throughout Russia. Moreover, the government should intensify its
efforts to work with the NGO community in Russia. The government should continue
to actively prosecute and sentence traffickers. It should also identify and address
trafficking complicity of public officials. Specialized targeted training for law
enforcement is essential to ensure that police are armed with the proper
investigative tools to implement anti-trafficking statutes and the new witness
protection legislation. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2005
TRAFFICKING IN RUSSIAN WOMEN
Regardless of the definition used, the fact remains that throughout the world
thousands of young women and girls are sold into the international sex trade each
year by criminal groups. Organized crime and corruption throughout the newly
independent Russia plays a particularly crucial role in the incidences of human
trafficking, as noted by The Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at
American University. TraCCC views Russia's organized crime and corruption as a
"growing phenomena (that) presents a formidable challenge to the international law
enforcement, political and business communities" (Stoecker). They further indicate
that there is "a disproportionately negative effect on transitional and developing
countries, ..." where "the most severely impacted are the less privileged, particularly
women, children, ... and those not part of the circle of corruption" (The Transnational
Crime and Corruption Center). Dr. Sally Stoecker, project director and research
professor at TraCCC, indicates that there are at least four factors that facilitate the
growth of trafficking:
Globalization of the economy;
Increased demand for personal services in the developed world;
The continuing rise in unemployment among women; and
The rapid and unregulated enticement and movement of human capital via the
Internet. (Stoecker)
WHY DO WOMEN DO IT?
Despite myriad prohibitions against trafficking, worldwide networks marketing
Russian women (and children) for prostitution continue to flourish. Trafficking in
women from throughout much of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union has
exploded since 1989. According to a recent report submitted by the Global Survival
Network (GSN), the success of Russia's criminal networks "can be attributed to
several factors, including the global economic trends, the declining socioeconomic
status of women, the enormous profitability of the business, government inaction,
and, in the most egregious circumstances, government complicity" (Caldwell, et.al.).
This is, as GSN suggests, not only due to an increase in organized crime and
corruption in the region, but is, at least in part, also due to a chaotic economic
environment that is a result of political and economic transformation from a centrally
planned economy to a free market economy. The result is a chaotic economic
environment in which many many Russian citizens (both male and female) continue
to experience harmful effects from the past decade's economic and political
transition. However, it is Russian women who have disproportionately endured
negative effects as a consequence of this transition. For instance, more Russian
women than men are unemployed. Russian women also face increased
discrimination in hiring (WLDI). World Bank figures indicate that women in Russia
earn only 70% of men's wages for the same work and make up 70% of the official
unemployed (Eaves), though the former figure is most likely higher. These factors
have lead to a massive decrease in opportunities for Russian women in the formal
workplace. What is more, government-sponsored social supports (such as family
health care and daycare for children) are reduced or eliminated entirely, which is an
added strain on women, who are typically responsible for the care of children and
the household. The most significant cause of the abovementioned effects on women
is the country's implementation of macroeconomic policies since the collapse of
Communism in the early 1990s. Supply-side economic reforms, sanctioned by the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, have caused plummeting
devaluation of Russia's currency, on top of removing consumer price supports,
which led to hyperinflation. These have had intensely detrimental effects on the
majority of Russian citizens, making it more difficult to survive on a daily basis. The
cessation of government subsidies to industry and the implementation of a rapid
privatization scheme have led to massive unemployment. Finally, deep cuts in
government spending, in conjunction with these other neoliberal reforms, have only
succeeded in placing the burden of transition on Russia's citizens. It is within this
unstable environment that many Russian women find themselves looking for
alternative solutions ... and it is within this environment that many are either lured or
coerced into a dangerous and corrupt world of prostitution, with so-called
guarantees of a better life and a well-paid job in a foreign country. 17-year old
Lyubov, from a Russian coal mining city, admits that life in Russia was very difficult.
She reports that "there were days when I had nothing to eat." Her ordeal began in
1998, when a man in her hometown offered her a plane ticket, a visa, and a job
abroad. Sadly, Lyubov had no idea that she was being "sold" into prostitution. She
was only trying to improve her life, and that of her family. After six months of working
as an enslaved prostitute for no pay, Lyubov now sits in a jail cell in Israel awaiting
expulsion as an illegal worker, and she feels fortunate to have been "caught"
(Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation: Russia). A recent study, alarmingly,
indicates that prostitition is, in fact, one of the top "careers" that Russian schoolgirls
dream of pursuing (Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation: Russia). Thus, there
are indeed a number of Russian women, in contrast to Lyubov and others like her
who are coerced, who enter the sex trade voluntarily, viewing prostitution as their
ticket to a life of adventure and glamour. Yet, falso promises abound with these
women, as well. Many who knowingly enter into the sex trade are forced to work for
months or years without earnings, and they endure cruel forms of sexual exploitation.
Ultimately, these women end up putting themselves into a position where they may
lose not only their basic human rights but their lives, as well.
HOW IS IT DONE?
As a result of the continued deterioration of economic conditions, it is estimated that
up to 50,000 women leave Russia permanently every year(Caldwell), for various
reasons. A great many of these women find themselves to be victims of illegal
trafficking, and they are often sold involuntarily into prostitution. As a part of the
“trade in human flesh,” they are treated as objects or commodities, coerced,
deceived, and deprived of their basic human rights, such as the ability to control
their own bodies and labor. The majority of these women are sold like slaves in
countries such as Israel, Malaysia, Japan, Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Belgium, the
Netherlands, and Switzerland, to name but a few recipient countries. While it is true
that some Russian women enter into the international sex trade knowingly, many
because they erroneously believe they will lead a glamorous life and make a lot of
money, the overwhelming majority are tricked into such activities by criminal groups
posing as employment, travel agencies, and marriage firms. The victims enter into
what they believe (and hope) will be legitimate agreements with these criminals,
who promise them jobs as entertainers, waitresses, or barmaids overseas, or who
promise to find them husbands. Many of these women are “raped and beaten, have
their passports confiscated and are threatened with harm to themselves and their
families if they try to break their “contracts” or seek help” (Factbook on Global
Sexual Exploitation: Eastern Europe). They are then forced to work as prostitutes in
order to pay off travel “debts,” which are sometimes as high as $15,000. Some
women are sold to other criminals who then add more to this “debt.”
Homeless People - Rebecca's Story
In her own words this is our friend Rebecca's story...
"Two things happened when I turned 12, my Father who used to beat the hell out of
us left home and the other thing that happened is I started using drugs... One of my
friends said 'Here try this it will make you feel better', and it did.
When I turned 13, my Mum found a new partner who lived at home with us. He raped
me regularly and abused my younger sisters as well. I was only 13.
He also use to beat Mum up and it was hell on earth. For about a year I suffered
through it but when I was fourteen I couldn't take it anymore, so I said to Mum 'You
have to get rid of this guy, either he goes or I go.' Mum chose him and I landed on
the streets.
Initially I stayed with friends, and then slept with guys from the neighborhood to keep
a roof over my head. Eventually I had to leave the suburbs for the city streets.
Sleeping in abandoned houses and buildings, I lived on the streets with other young
people who were like me.
The cuts all up my arm are from slashing up. I slash myself to turn emotional pain into
controllable physical pain. It's not usually to kill myself, just to help cope with the pain
of the past.
I don't do it much, but if I'm having a shocker week I might just sit there and slash till I
reach one hundred cuts.
If the only thing that happens to you in your life is you just keep getting hurt, you end
up saying no this isn't going to happen to me, I'm not going to let myself get hurt
anymore, I can't handle the reality of life I can't handle any of it why not end it all then I
know that I don't have to deal with any of it.
The last time I tried to kill myself I only had a syringe to slash up with so I was
hacking at myself trying to get myself bleeding properly. Then I sniffed paint until I
blacked out.
[left] Dominic, Rebecca & Gerry
I wanted to bleed to death but it didn't work because someone found me lying in the
alley and called an ambulance.
You just give up, that's it, it's the end. As soon as you get to that stage where you
don't care if you live or die you end up so upset, so depressed, so hurt with
everything that you just cant handle even the day in front of you.
In the end it's a matter of well if I get through the day then great, if I don't doesn't
matter, no big deal. It's not like anyone's going to miss whether I'm here or not.
To have the confidence to actually do something about where you are is especially
hard because you have to build up that confidence.
By the end of the time you come on the streets you've lost all confidence in yourself
and you think I cant do it even if I try I'm not going to be able to do it.
[left] Rebecca. [right] Gerry (co-founder of Rebeccas Community) & Rebecca,
talking on the street late at night 2001.
Just to know that someone cares is the main thing I guess. Most of the people on the
street don't have anyone. We end up with no one when we come out here and you
think that no one cares no one worries about you and no ones willing to listen to what
goes on in your life… what problems you have.
Then I meet Dominic and Gerry and the volunteers, they are willing to give up their
time to come and see you and worry about you personally and take the time out to
listen to what you have to say, it's great.
That's what people need is someone to actually be there and to talk with, to listen, to
care, someone to trust.
Knowing that there is someone there to care even if they aren't there 24 / 7. When
they do come out you really know it's someone who accepts you the way you are
and they are ready to listen.
They care about me and they miss me if I don't turn up and that really makes me feel
really special, well at least to someone."
Ofelia is a tall, pretty 15-year-old waitress in a club in Metro Manila. (All accounts of
child prostitution begin with a gut-wrenching personal story, so here it is.) She and a
friend ran away to Manila from her village in southern Luzon because home life was
miserable and her father said he could not afford to keep her in school.
The two girls soon ran out of money and began to look for a job. They spotted a
notice, ‘Waitresses Wanted’, and 10 minutes in the manager’s office was all it took.
They reported the following evening at 6pm, worked until 4am and were given
lodgings nearby. For the first few days Ofelia’s job was to take orders and serve
drinks. Then the manager told her to sit with customers and entertain them. Her pay
was based on the number of beers or ‘ladies’ drinks’ she consumed. She soon
found she was getting drunk every night. Some customers in the club became
violent as the night wore on. Ofelia depended on the floor manager and security
guards to protect her. But she also learned something else. If she agreed, a
customer could pay a ‘bar fine’ and leave with Ofelia on his arm. These customers
were all Filipinos – seldom was a foreigner seen in the club.
The pay she receives for these late-night dates is better than the commissions on
drinks – and she doesn’t have to get drunk or endure the rowdiness and abuse. She
feels shame about her work at the club – it’s not a nice place to be in. She is saving;
she wants to build up her capital so that she can have a business of her own. And
marriage? Of course she aspires to marriage. Maybe one of her dates...
There’s something wrong here, surely? Child prostitute stories are about innocence
brutally deflowered, eight-year-olds chained to beds, sickening victimization. The
manager is supposed to be a villain, not a protector. Sure, he doesn’t pay her
proper wages, he encourages her to get drunk and chat up men – that’s pretty bad,
and against the law, even if he does pay for lodging and monthly health check-ups.
And what about the customers? They’re supposed to be villains too, preferably
Westerners on the sex circuit with vibrators in their pockets and deviant carnal lusts.
Not dates seen as a profitable escape route from an unpleasant environment;
certainly not potential marriage partners.
And 15? You can hardly call Ofelia a child. In lots of Muslim societies a high
proportion of girls are married by 15. It’s hardly unusual in any society for a tall, pretty
girl to have had her first sexual fling by then. Anyway, she’s not working in a brothel,
she’s been hired as a waitress.
No, this isn’t real child prostitution. Or is it? There can be no more emotive coupling
of words than ‘child’ with ‘prostitution’. The image of a small girl or boy forced to
deploy humanity’s ultimate natural resource – the body – for the commercial
purpose of sexual gratification is profoundly disturbing. And in the past few years
this image has been increasingly paraded before us. It is widely accepted that the
trade in youthful flesh is growing, the numbers of children involved are large, and a
considerable proportion endure conditions close to slavery. A Special UN
Rapporteur on The Sale of Children has been appointed. The Norwegian
Government has informed the Council of Europe that: ‘Every year, one million
children are either kidnapped, bought, or in other ways forced to enter the sex
market.’
The explosion in worldwide child sexual exploitation is frequently linked to ‘sex
tourism’ – the promotion of recreational sex as a purpose of travel to certain Asian,
and a few African, holiday destinations. Speciality tours for male paedophiles to the
Philippines and Sri Lanka and the booming massage parlour and night-club life in
Thai resorts, have attracted notoriety. Headlines about children rescued from
brothels, occasional arrests of paedophiles, and activism to ‘End Child Prostitution
in Asian Tourism’ – ECPAT is the main international campaigning organization –
have become routine. Together, they conjure a picture in which commercialized
abuse of young girls and boys by international visitors are the dominant motif.
No-one can deny that such abuses do take place and rightly arouse horrified
concern on behalf of the children involved. ECPAT and others have deservedly won
praise for exposing them. But as a characterization of the vast majority of ‘child
prostitution’ in Thailand, Philippines, Sri Lanka, or virtually anywhere else, this
picture is highly distorted. Solid information is seriously lacking. Despite all the
noise around the subject, there are no research studies which provide reliable
information about the extent of child prostitution, let alone the age and gender
breakdown or the dynamics of supply and demand, either globally or within a
specific country. In Bangkok, estimates of child prostitutes range absurdly from
2,500 to 800,000. No-one can produce a source for Norway’s ‘one million a year’: it
does not exist.
This is not to suggest there is no information; there is some. There is also intelligent
deduction. And among the few things that can be stated with confidence is that the
overwhelming majority of ‘children’ in prostitution are well past puberty, mostly in
their mid-teens, and many are beyond both the legal age of marriage and of sexual
consent. Another is that the majority of ‘child prostitutes’ are not employed as
prostitutes, nor do they work in brothels. In Manila and Bangkok they work as
waitresses, receptionists, bar girls, ‘go-go’ dancers, and the degree to which they
engage in sex-for-cash varies with occupation and personal predilection. In Sri
Lanka and Mombasa they sell curios or act as tour guides on the beach. Neither
their work, nor their self-image, nor their aspirations are confined to sex work. The
‘prostitute’ label has been stuck on them by the beholder.
Thus, in the phrase ‘child prostitution’, both words are questionably accurate – as far
as the majority are concerned. And as for ‘forced’ into sexual work, in many cases
the ‘force’ is metaphorical. There is often a strong element of volition, if not to enter,
certainly to stay.
As with all child labour, it is extremely difficult to challenge the conventional wisdom
without being accused of condoning what cannot, and must not, be condoned. But in
order to address a problem effectively, it is vital to understand exactly what is going
on. Many efforts to save or rehabilitate ‘fallen girls’ are conspicuously unsuccessful.
Bangladeshi girls brought back from Pakistan, to where they have been illegally
trafficked, often reappear in Karachi only months later. Girls rescued from Thai sex
parlours similarly return. Some organizations working with Brazilian street girls
make no effort to stop even very young girls from selling sex: some would say that
this defence of a child’s right to work is taken to lamentable excess. But the question
is: what other choices do they have? They are poor. Most come from broken homes.
There is no social safety-net. And they can earn, relatively, a lot of money.
The roles played by children in economic life in many countries are often derided
because they do not fit with the modern idea of childhood as a long period of
dependency and preparation for activities – work and procreation – labelled ‘adults
only’. In families still operating by pre-industrial norms, this division is unreal. By age
12 or 14, or by the end of primary school, millions of children in Africa, Asia and
Latin America have no alternative but to assume adult roles. In rural areas boys
shoulder more farming tasks, and girls assume more domestic responsibilities in
preparation for marriage. But in town – and most developing countries are
urbanizing at a fantastic rate – things are different. In town, they must earn.
Youngsters’ household contribution must be garnered in a job, or ‘on the street’.
Normally, boys are sent out to earn; girls stay at home where they provide a
domestic back-up to working mothers and their virtue can be protected. But this is
not the case everywhere. In Thailand, for example, women have historically played a
prominent role in trading and small business enterprise. The girls from the poverty-
stricken North-East who today are recruited by employment agents into Bangkok’s
massage parlours are performing the expected filial duty of providing support to
their families. The pattern of development has changed the circumstances in which
they fulfill this role. Their mothers were vendors; the daughters sell sex. They send
money home, and their parents are grateful. Many return eventually and marry on
their savings.
Elsewhere, economic stress and mounting unemployment are increasingly pushing
women and children into marginal and servile occupations. In the cities’ expanding
slums, domestic violence is rising and marital unions are increasingly volatile. Some
girls are forced out of the home by violent or abusive step-parents; others simply
have to go out to earn. What can they do? The only occupations open to them are
commercialized versions of the domestic life they were raised for: housework,
cleaning, baby-minding, cooking, and sex – the work of a married woman.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child places the outer limit of childhood at 18,
and the word ‘child’ is now often used to denote the under-18 age-group. This
creates anomalies. In most countries, the age of marriage is lower than this. But
pregnancy is risky in the under-18s, and recent research suggests that until 20 a
woman’s genital area is immature and she is more susceptible to sexually-
transmitted infections including HIV. So some commentators are now pushing ‘child’
up to age 20. At the same time, both the age of menstruation and of first sexual
encounter are everywhere declining. A lengthening gap is opening between the
onset of sexual activity and the official end of childhood.
This period in which the adolescent is both adult and child interacts with the growth
of the sex industry and its commercialization. The sex market – like the marriage
market – is one in which youth and ‘freshness’ have always commanded a high
premium. Thus the majority of ‘child prostitutes’ are young adult entrants into a
workplace which remunerates youthful good looks – especially feminine good looks.
The supply and demand factors related to child work, together with different cultural
views of prostitution in different settings, are the most important influences at work.
The role played by international tourism – especially paedophile tourism – in
promoting child prostitution has been much overstated. The world’s oldest
profession has always been plied around men-away-from-home: soldiers, sailors,
traders, pilgrims. The international businessman and the tourist are just today’s most
numerous, and usually most free-spending, customers. They contribute to an
expansion in the sex industry generally, and to that extent they play an important role.
But the majority of customers for teenage prostitutes are neither foreigners nor
tourists. Except in a few special resort locations, tourists are not the demons of
commercialized child sexual abuse that they have been painted.
In Olongapo in the Philippines, whose leisure industry grew up around the presence
of the US naval fleet at Subic Bay, a study of 1,000 under-age hospitality workers
found that half their customers were locals. In Thailand, commercial sex is a regular
form of male entertainment. Over three-quarters of Thai men have visited a
prostitute by the age of 19. The age of the girl depends largely on the depth of the
client’s pocket and his social status. Younger girls start in the cheaper
establishments; many try to graduate to smarter places once they’ve learned their
trade. International travellers typically patronize the fancier clubs. According to one
analyst, most Westerners prefer girls older than 18; but expansion in the top end of
the market does tend to draw girls in at the bottom, and the age of entry does
appear to be declining.
The onus of guilt carried by tourists is partly explained by their visibility. Then there is
the fact that no society wants to admit that it practises ‘child prostitution’. And where
the evidence is undeniable, it is more bearable to blame the ‘unclean other’ –
decadent foreigners with their incomprehensible tastes and misbehaviours. Where
there is an overlay of North-South exploitation – the Western tourist ruining innocent
paradise with his credit card and unleashed libido – this version plays easily in
certain, well-meaning ears.
There is no need to look further than the rigid systems of girl protection which used
to – sometimes still do – operate in most societies to recognize that the notion of
innocence perverted by the evil outsider is far-fetched. ‘Simple’ societies were by
no means so simple that they did not perceive the risk to girls of lascivious male
intent. The circumstances in which they can continue these protections – customs
such as early marriage and purdah which women activists anyway deplore – are
vanishing, and nothing has been put in their place. Girls venture out into the world,
obliged for one reason or another to enter the workplace. They are young, sexually
mature, under-educated, ill-prepared for adult life, their options are limited, and like
Ofelia in Metro Manila, the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
What is the solution? Even if an Ofelia is above the age of sexual consent, her
absorption into the sex industry is still unjustifiable. She and millions of today’s
young people have inadequate physical, psychological and emotional resources to
negotiate the path through the minefield of potential adult sexual – or other –
exploitation. For girls in particular, these inadequacies need to be repaired, mainly
through education. The campaigns to end ‘child prostitution’ should indeed continue;
those who live off, or co-operate in the sexual exploitation of minors are
reprehensible and should be brought to book. But little is served by distorting the
analytical framework and obscuring the main dynamics at work. The child victim and
the paedophile tourist are only a small part of the picture. The Ofelias are the rest.
Byambasuren and Ankhbayar's Story Driven by the poverty that engulfed so many in
Mongolia after the fall of the Soviet Union, Byambasuren's family migrated to the
capital of Ulaanbaatar from the countryside in search of work. Like many others,
they were unable to get a city registration, a piece of paper needed to enroll their
sons and daughters in school or obtain social assistance from the government.
Byambasuren lives with his mother and a 6-year old brother. Although his mother
works, the income she gains is not enough to provide for the family. To make
matters worse, the boys' uncle often invades their tiny, one-room home and abuses
the children. The boys left the home because they had nothing left to lose. Their
mother felt so helpless that she did not protest. However, she is concerned that her
younger son will follow in his brother's footsteps. She would prefer that he attend
school, but without government approval, there seems to be little hope.
The two brothers are very close. As they walk, they hold hands. Sometimes it seems
that Ankhbayar doesn't even open his eyes as they walk, his trust is so complete. If
they are not holding hands, Byambasuren takes his brother in his arms and guides
him, all the while scanning the road ready to protect his brother from harm. They
were on the street three days before the police picked them up. At the Child
Identification Center, the boys were given showers and a bed to share for the night.
Tomorrow, they would be reunited with their mother.
The reunion is bittersweet. The mother was happy to see her sons home, but at the
same time she was filled with despair because she has no idea how she will raise
them. "I don't know what to do," she confesses. "Maybe, I should give my children to
a shelter, and they will understand me when they grow up." She voices the concern
of many parents here.
What's Next for Byambasuren and Ankhbayar?
Ankhbayar remains at home with his mother. Byambasuren left to collect bottles one
day and did not return. "It's difficult for him," his mother admits. "It's difficult for me,
too, with him coming and going," she adds. "My biggest fear is that my youngest son
will follow in his footsteps." For now, Ankhbayar is at home, but he is devastated by
his brother's departure.
Ankhbayar's mother has good reason to worry. It is difficult to settle into the routine
of home after life on the street. And homeless kids are part of a bigger problem.
Many families exist in desperate conditions and parents find it extremely difficult to
provide a stable, nurturing environment for their children. As long as 35 percent of
the population in Mongolia lives below the poverty line, there is little hope of
eliminating, or even significantly reducing the number of children who are forced to
make the street their home.
The global increase in poverty is most evident in eastern Europe, rising from 1
million to 24 million people between 1987 and 1998—defined as those forced to
live on less than $2 a day. The percentage of the population below the poverty line is
30 percent in Albania and over 44 percent in Romania, according to the CIA World
Factbook.
The introduction of the “free market” into the former state-controlled economies in
eastern and central Europe has had its most devastating impact on family life.
Millions of breadwinners have lost their jobs, Western imports have forced out
domestic production leading to rising prices, and welfare provisions have been
gutted.
According to Terre des Hommes, “Living conditions for the majority of the
approximately 150 million children in the East European states and the Soviet Union
have worsened since 1989.”
After decades of suppression under the brutal Stalinist regimes that existed in
Bucharest and Tirana, the population has been plunged into “shock therapy”—the
reintegration of these states into the global capitalist economy. The rule of Nicolai
Ceausescu and Enver Hoxha has been replaced by the IMF and the World Bank,
which have presided over restructuring (factory closures and mass layoffs), reforms
(axing spending on education, health and pensions), and the encouragement of
enterprise (the private acquisition of the few profitable state concerns at fire sale
prices or through downright theft).
The process of European Union (EU) integration has meant efforts to transform the
East into a reservoir of cheap labour and close to zero corporate taxation, while at
the same time making the EU’s external borders even tighter—clamping down on
so-called “illegal immigrants,” denying even basic welfare provisions to those that
often make long and hazardous journeys to escape persecution or grinding poverty.
To legitimise this policy, the universal scapegoating of asylum seekers and
refugees by all the establishment parties turns victims into villains. Not least, led by
the US, the West has waged war and fomented civil war across the Balkans, forcing
hundreds of thousands into exile and creating conditions where human trafficking
can flourish.
The governments of the European Union avert their gaze when it comes to
trafficking children, despite having signed on to the Protocol to the Convention on
the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Trafficking and Child
Pornography. A 2002 report by Europol, the European Law Enforcement Agency,
on the trafficking of human beings into the EU, shows that most of the 15 member
states keep no relevant statistics at all. Only four provide any concrete information,
with the majority reporting that figures are “not available” or “not given.”
Tens of thousands of Germans cross the border to abuse the children, officials say.
Children as young as eight have been seen negotiating over sex practices and
prices - and some are paid only in sweets, according to the report's author. The
Czech Republic is becoming a discount market for sex with children...Europe's
biggest brothel
Adolf Gallwitz
Police psychologist
The head of Unicef in Germany, Reinhard Schlagintweit, said the German and
Czech governments had failed to combat child exploitation and had turned a blind
eye to the problem. A German police psychologist described the border as the
biggest brothel in Europe. "The Czech Republic is becoming a discount market for
sex with children," said Adolf Gallwitz, saying paedophilia in the area was
"increasing at an incredible rate". It is shocking that children right in our backyard
are being mistreated unscrupulously
Christina Rau
Unicef patron, wife of German president
The report said children were brought to the area from across the Czech Republic
and other central and eastern European countries. The abusers are mostly German
sex tourists and paedophiles, who pay for access to the children. "It is shocking that
children right in our backyard are being mistreated unscrupulously," said Unicef
patron Christina Rau, wife of German President Johannes Rau. "We must do
everything to help the victims and protect other children from these crimes." About
100,000 German sex tourists travel to the Czech Republic, Mr Gallwitz estimated -
half of them paedophiles. The author of the report, Cathrin Schauer from regional
aid project Karo, said bus stops, petrol stations and rest areas near the border had
been converted into "bazaars" where child prostitutes were bought and sold. Some
children are sold by their impoverished families
"In some districts, they wait in cars or apartment windows. Women with small
children in their arms look out for sex tourists and hand the children over into cars,"
the study said. The victims were often driven to prostitution by desperate poverty,
Ms Schauer said. Those receiving cash were paid between five and 25 euros by
each customer. Some suffered violence at the hands of their abusers. Austrians and
Italians had been seen taking part in the abuse, although most were from the nearby
German states of Bavaria and Saxony. The report was co-produced with child
campaign group Ecpat, which works to eliminate child prostitution.
FRANCE is a Country of Transit and Destination.
Over 300 children under the age of 10 out of hundreds of illegal immigrants were
discovered crammed in deplorable conditions in the hold of a Cambodian-
registered cargo ship, which was run aground on the French Riviera coast 40
kilometers from Cannes. The ship, filled with mostly Kurds, set out from Greece, with
a stopover in Turkey. The occupants paid $200 to get on the ship, then another
$2,000 once on board. The French government decided to remove border police
from small Normandy ports. The posts at Dieppe and Ouistreham, near Caen, are to
be dismantled in June 2001. British authorities believe that the dismantling will only
forge a new route for the smugglers. Over 300 children illegally cross the borders
into France annually seeking political asylum. More than 80 percent are boys.
France cannot legally send them home, and is supposed to take care of them.
Sometimes they are placed in hostels where there are no visiting rights. Three
Frenchmen were charged with pedophilia crimes stemming from 1987-1996
involving purchasing sex with children on the French version of the Internet, Minitel. If
convicted, all three could face 20 years in prison. When Swiss police searched a
suspected Swiss criminal's apartment, they discovered an old video of Amnon
Chemouil, a French citizen, having sex with an 11-year-old girl in Thailand in 1994.
Having sex with a minor — even outside of France — violates France's penal code
even if the sexual act occurs in a country where sex with a minor is legal. This is the
first case tried under the 1998 sex tourism law. Chemouil pled guilty and was
sentenced to seven years. The girls was tracked down in Thailand and brought to
France to testify. In Paris, Colombian children were used in child pornography
videos.
There is also great diversity amongst child sexual offenders. Child sex
industries serve both local and foreign offenders. The vast majority of
offenders are men although women can also abuse children. The reasons
for offending are many and diverse but offenders generally fall into one of
two categories: situational offenders and preferential offenders. The
situational or opportunistic offender does not have a true sexual preference
for children, but engages in sex with children for varied and sometimes
complex reasons. The preferential offender (sometimes called a paedophile)
has a definite sexual preference for children. Their sexual behaviour is
highly predictable. They are smaller in numbers than situational offenders
but potentially can abuse large numbers of children.
Russia is now one of the main producers of child pornography in the world, as new
research on the commercial sexual exploitation of children in Moscow, St
Petersburg and Irkustk reveals. The research also indicates that Russia is seriously
affected by all forms of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC),
registering alarming incidences of child prostitution and trafficking of children for
sexual purposes.
The research findings will be discussed at a national consultation in Moscow on 1-2
March 2004. The conference, which will gather together Government
representatives and international and non-governmental organizations, will also plan
appropriate counter-action to deal with all forms of commercial sexual exploitation of
children (CSEC) in the Russian Federation. The consultation has been organised by
child rights advocacy group ECPAT International in cooperation with local NGO
Sisters and is supported by the Russian Ministry of Labour and Social Development.
Alarming rates
Experts say that 25% of the pornography on global Internet websites contains child
pornography. Among these, more than 50% contain child pornography from Russia.
Although the precise number of children involved in the production of Russian
pornography is unknown, experts report there are some tens of thousands of such
children.
The business is run by criminal networks that manufacture, distribute and export (to
Germany, Britain, the United States, Italy, Canada and elsewhere) photographs and
video records of a pornographic nature, includi