The Sex Exploiter: Theme Paper for the Second World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children

• NCJ Number: 195564
• Author(s): Julia O'Connell Davidson
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 40 pages
• Sale Source: ECPAT International Resource Ctr
• Publication Format: Document (Online)
• Publication Type: Thesis/Dissertation
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom
• Note: Downloaded June 26, 2002

Annotation

This document discusses those who sexually exploit children and methods of prevention.

Abstract

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. There is diversity in sex exploiters in terms of their identities, attitudes, and motivations, such as those who sexually exploit young children and adolescents in non-commercial settings, in the commercial sex industry (those who exploit children for financial gain), and in the context of long-term sexual-economic relationships. There is a strong relationship between socially prescribed or tolerated attitudes and practices and the commercial sexual exploitation of children. There is a need to develop and fund public education campaigns to challenge and undermine the widely endorsed beliefs about sexuality, gender, race, class, caste, childhood, economic life, and/or prostitution that exploiters of all types use to rationalize and defend their actions. There must be a link at local, national, and international levels to tackle the commercial sexual exploitation of children and combat other forms of discrimination. The violation of children’s rights through commercial sexual exploitation is not separate from other human rights’ issues. Questions about sex exploiters cannot be divorced from more general questions about poverty, gender relations, social exclusion, child labor, welfare policies, tourist development, racism, AIDS and sexual health, and prostitutes’ civil and human rights. The actions of all those involved in the commercial sexual exploitation of children are neither identical nor morally equivalent. This fact should be reflected in the range of policy measures designed to address the sex exploiter. In many instances the environment behind sexual exploitation must be the primary focus of concern and intervention, not the individual who exploits. Efforts to strengthen and enforce laws against child sexual exploitation must be balanced and complimented by long-term measures to transform the environments that produce sex exploiters. These measures will require a great deal of investment and adequate resources must be committed to them. 55 references