NCJ Number
195566
Date Published
2001
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This document identifies gaps in anti-trafficking strategies and interventions for commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC).
Abstract
Since 1996, the exploitation of children in prostitution and pornography, and the sale of children’s sexual services to local clients, men and women traveling with the intent of abusing children, and across borders to people in other countries seeking children for sex have been the focus of much study and action. Trafficking comprises a series of acts, not all of which may be illegal in other circumstances. It involves the movement of a child from his/her normal location to a new location, and the exploitation of that child at some stage in the process. It is the combination of movement and exploitation that characterizes trafficking, no matter when the exploitation itself takes place. Trafficking is described according to the “push” factors that lead to the child or adult leaving one place, and the “pull” factors that decide the place to which the trafficking victims move or are moved. Push factors include poverty, family break-up, violence, low education levels, or discrimination. Pull factors include economic differentials that make even poor neighboring cities, regions, or countries seem a likely source of livelihood, unmet demand for cheap and malleable labor, demand for sexual services linked to tourism development, or shifts in the supply of local women in the sex sector. Combating trafficking requires multidisciplinary cooperation at regional, national, and international levels, based on an understanding of the players and mechanisms involved in each particular trafficking situation, and on the relative strengths of each party acting against it. It is estimated that between one and two million people are trafficked each year worldwide, 50,000 of these into the United States. In the last 30 years, trafficking in women and children for sexual exploitation in Asia alone has victimized more than 30 million people. Few statistics on trafficking victims are available on the ages of the victims. The absence of data, the complexity of the issue, the lack of child-friendly or rights-based judicial procedures, and the difficulty of reintegration at the family and community levels remain hurdles to anti-trafficking intervention. 29 footnotes