International Child Day - 20 November

Child trafficking
Child trafficking affects children throughout the world, in both industrialized and developing countries. Trafficked children are subjected to prostitution, forced into marriage or illegally adopted; they provide cheap or unpaid labour, work as house servants or beggars, are recruited into armed groups and are used for sports. Trafficking exposes children to violence, sexual abuse and HIV infection and violates their rights to be protected, grow up in a family environment and have access to education. A ‘child victim of trafficking’ is any person under 18 who is recruited, transported, transferred, harboured or received for the purpose of exploitation, either within or outside a country. The use of illicit means, including violence or fraud, is irrelevant. Ending trafficking will require international, regional and national cooperation. Root causes – poverty, discrimination, exclusion and violence – need to be addressed along with the demand side.

Facts and figures
• The invisible and clandestine nature of trafficking and the lack of strong data collection make it difficult to know the global number of child victims. However, according to the latest estimates available, some 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide every year.

• In East Asia and the Pacific, most trafficking is into child prostitution, though some children are also recruited for agricultural and industrial work. In South Asia, trafficking is often related to debt bondage.

• In Europe, children are mainly trafficked from east to west, reflecting the demand for cheap labour and child prostitution.

HUMAN RIGHTS
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) asks States Parties to take “all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent the abduction of, the sale of or traffic in children for any purpose or in any form” (Article 35) and to “promote physical and psychological recovery and reintegration of a child victim” (Article 39).

Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (2002) on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography further defines these standards. The optional protocol to the UN Convention against ransnational Organized Crime (2000), known as the Palermo Protocol, for the first time defines trafficking in human beings. ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (1999) includes child trafficking.

Arabic Forum