Child sexual exploitation

Child sexual exploitation is a major child protection issue for communities across the UK. Hidden from view and going unnoticed, vulnerable young girls and boys are groomed and then abused, leaving them traumatised and scarred for life.

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What is Child Sexual Exploitation?

Child sexual exploitation is illegal activity by people who have power over young people and use it to sexually abuse them. This can involve a broad range of exploitative activity, from seemingly consensual relationships and informal exchanges of sex for attention, accommodation, gifts or cigarettes, through to very serious organised crime.

How many are affected in the UK?

It is a hidden issue, so we can only go on estimates from national levels of service provision, including our own. Last year Barnardo's services worked with almost 1,200 children and young people who had been sexually exploited.

The true number of children who are victims of sexual exploitation is likely to be much higher. For victims, the pain of their ordeal and fear that they will not be believed means they are too often scared to come forward.

Risks faced by children?

Children at risk of sexual exploitation are some of the most vulnerable in our society. Many have experienced abandonment or have suffered from physical and mental abuse. They need help but dont know where to look.

Younger victims are being targeted. In only a few years, the average age has dropped from 15 to 13. Barnardos services have identified children as young as 10 who have been subjected to sexual exploitation.

Perpetrators of these crimes are becoming increasingly sophisticated; using the internet to protect their identity and trafficking children around the country to avoid detection.

The services Barnardos provide

Barnardos is the largest provider of child sexual exploitation support services in the UK. Last year we worked with almost 1,200 victims through 21 specialist services. Our services work hard to identify and reach out to young people at risk in the community. By showing concern and building trust, our staff help children to break free of abusive and exploitative relationships.

Staffed by qualified professionals, these services provide a safe and confidential environment where young people can go for help, advice and support. Children are offered a range of therapeutic interventions including one-to -one counselling, group-work sessions and drop-in support.

Services raise awareness of child sexual exploitation in their local area; working with schools and others to deliver preventative education programmes and providing specialist training to professionals so they know what signs to look out for

http://www.barnardos.org.uk/what_we_do/our_projects/sexual_exploitation.htm

Child sexual exploitation

Find out about child sexual exploitation, key statistics, official guidance, and learning from practice
Related NSPCC resources Keeping children safe online Watch our animation on child sexual exploitation Child sexual abuse homepage

Introduction
Child sexual exploitation is, to a great extent, a hidden problem. However, campaigners are working hard to raise awareness of this form of child abuse, it is receiving increasing attention in the media and there is a growing body of research on its nature and prevalence. This introduction presents what we know about child sexual exploitation, its causes and effects, how we can help victims and those at risk, and how it can be prevented. Read more about child sexual exploitation Related NSPCC resources Search the NSPCC library online for sexual exploitation resources

Research
The Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups (CSEGG) conducted by the Children's Commissioner for England identified 16,500 children as being at high risk of child sexual exploitation April 2010-March 2011. Find out what current research tells us about child sexual exploitation Related NSPCC resources Look at the indicators we use to see How safe are our children

Policy and guidance

The governments of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales set out guidelines for professionals working to protect children from child sexual exploitation. Learn about the policy and guidance on child sexual exploitation Related NSPCC resources Training on listening to sexually exploited children NSPCC services to prevent child sexual abuse

Practice
The NSPCC is delivering Protect and Respect, a service for young people affected by or at risk of sexual exploitation. Find out about our work to treat and prevent child sexual exploitation Practice resources for working with victims and preventing child sexual exploitation

http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/resourcesforprofessionals/sexualabuse/csehomepage_wda97456.html

Forms of sexual exploitation[edit source | editbeta]

Prostitution of children under the age of 18 years, child pornography and the (often related) sale and trafficking of children are often considered to be crimes of violence against children. They are considered to be forms of economic exploitation akin toforced labour or slavery. Such children often suffer irreparable damage to their physical and mental health. They face early pregnancy and risk sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HIV. They are often inadequately protected by the law and may be treated as criminals.[citation needed] Child trafficking and CSEC sometimes overlap. On the one hand, children who are trafficked are often trafficked for the purposes of CSEC. However, not all trafficked children are trafficked for these purposes. Further, even if some of the children trafficked for other forms of work are subsequently sexually abused at work, this does not necessarily constitute CSEC. On the other hand, according to the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the definition of Severe Forms of Trafficking in Persons includes any commercial sex act performed by a person under the age of 18. This means that any minor who is commercially sexually exploited is defined as a trafficking victim, whether or not movement has taken place. [3] CSEC is also part of, but distinct from, child abuse, or even child sexual abuse. Child rape, for example, will not usually constitute CSEC. Neither willdomestic violence. Although CSEC is considered as child labour, and indeed one of the worst forms of child labor, in terms of international conventions, in legislation, policy and programmatic terms, CSEC is often treated as a form of child abuse or a crime.[citation needed]

Causes[edit source | editbeta]

The causes of CSEC are complex and patterns differ among countries and regions. For example, in some areas the commercial sexual exploitation of children is clearly related to foreign child sex tourism, in others it is associated with the local demand. In most countries, girls represent 80 to 90% of the victims, although in some places boys predominate. [citation needed] As is the case for other worst forms of child labour, severe poverty, the possibility of relatively high earnings, low value attached to education, family dysfunction, a cultural obligation to help support the family or the need to earn money to simply survive are all factors that make children vulnerable to CSEC. In order to make a living children are sold into the sex trade to provide food and shelter and in some cases money to satisfy the addiction of a family member or themselves.
[citation needed ]

There are other non-economic factors that also push children into commercial sexual exploitation. Children who are at greatest risk of becoming victims of CSEC are those that have previously experienced physical or sexual abuse. A family environment of little protection, where caregivers are absent or where there is a high level of violence or alcohol or drug consumption, induces boys and girls to run away from home, making them highly susceptible to abuse. Gender discrimination and low educational levels of caregivers are also risk factors. Children with extreme poverty and marginalized families in coastal areas also becoming victims of CSEC. [citation
needed]

On the demand side, certain factors can aggravate the problem. For example, sex tourists are a source of demand for prostitution. The presence of military troops or of large public works may also create demand. Client preferences for young children, particularly in the context of the HIV and AIDS epidemic, pull in additional children. Additionally, the expansion of the Internet has facilitated the growth of child pornography.[citation needed] Experience has shown that certain socio-economic characteristics, such as population density, concentration of night entertainment (bars and discos), high poverty and unemployment levels, movement of people, and access to highways, ports, or borders are also associated with CSEC.

Prevalence[edit source | editbeta]

While it is impossible to know the true extent of the problem, given its illegal nature,International Labour Organization (ILO) global child labour figures for the year 2003 estimate that there are as many as 1.8 million children exploited in prostitution or pornography worldwide. [4] The Rapid Assessment survey, developed by the ILO's International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) and UNICEF, relies on interviews and other, mainly qualitative, techniques, to provide a picture of a specific activity in a limited geographic area. It is a highly useful tool for collecting information on the worst forms of child labour, like CSEC, that is difficult to capture with standard quantitative surveys. [citation needed] General knowledge offered to a child can decrease the likelihood of children being exploited into prostitution or pornography. A national campaign in Thailand provided 9 years of basic education, ... awareness-raising activities to change attitudes about child prostitution, and a surveillance system to prevent children from being coerced into prostitution. [5]

Statistics[edit source | editbeta]

Past surveys indicate that 30 to 35 percent of all prostitutes in the Mekong subregion of Southeast Asia are between 12 and 17 years of age.[6] Thailands Health System Research Institute reports that children in prostitution make up 40% of prostitutes in Thailand.[7] The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimate that 2 million children are exploited in prostitution or pornography every year.[1] An estimated 12,000 Nepalese children, mainly girls, are trafficked for sexual commercial exploitation each year within Nepal or to brothels in India and other countries.[4] Some 84% of girls in prostitution interviewed in Tanzania reported having been battered, raped or tortured by police officers and sungu sungu (local community guards). At least 60% had no permanent place to live. Some of these girls started out as child domestic workers.[4] UNICEF estimates that there are 60,000 child prostitutes in the Philippines and many of the 200 brothels in the notorious Angeles City offer children for sex. [8] In Brazil, UNICEF estimates that there are 250,000 children working in the child prostitution industry.[9] In El Salvador, one-third of the sexually exploited children between 14 and 17 years of age are boys. The median age for entering into prostitution among all children interviewed

was 13 years. They worked on average five days per week, although nearly 10% reported that they worked seven days a week.[4] In Malaysia, an estimated 150 children enter the child sex trade each year. [10] In Vietnam, family poverty, low family education and family dysfunction were found to be primary causes for CSEC. Sixteen per cent of the children interviewed were illiterate, 38% had only primary-level schooling. Sixty-six per cent said that tuition and school fees were beyond the means of their families.[4] In Sri Lanka, children often become the prey of sexual exploiters through friends and relatives. The prevalence of boys in prostitution here is strongly related to foreign tourism. [4] Experts indicate that there are currently at least 100,000 child victims of sex trafficking in the United States while upwards of 325,000 remain at risk
[11]

United States[edit source | editbeta]

In 2001, the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work released a study on CSEC conducted in 17 cities across the United States. While they did not interview any of the adolescent subjects of the inquiry, they estimated through secondary response that as many as 300,000 American youth may be at risk of commercial sexual exploitation at any time. [12] However, the actual number of children involved in prostitution is likely to be much smaller: over 10 years only 827 cases a year have been reported to police departments. [13] Scholarly research funded by the National Institute of Justice and realized by the Social Networks Research Group at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (http://snrg-nyc.org/) and the Center for Court Innovation in New York City used Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS), Social Network Analysis, capture/recapture, and Markov based probability estimates to generate a prevalence estimate for New York City that suggests far fewer commercially sexually exploited children than the 300,000 and far more than the 827 suggested by these two most widely read sources. [14] Especially vulnerable are homeless and runaways. The National Runaway Switchboard says that one-third of runaway youths in America will be lured into prostitution within 48 hours on the streets [15] and Kristi House reports on their website that 75% of minors engaged in prostitution have a pimp (www.kristihouse.org). This view of adolescent prostitution in the United States as primarily driven by pimp-exploiters and other "sex traffickers" has recently been challenged by SNRG-NYC [4] in their 2008 New York City study which interviewed over 300 under-age prostitutes and found that only 10% reported having pimps. A second study done in Atlantic City, New Jersey, by the same group incorporated an extended qualitative ethnographic component that looked specifically at the relationship between pimps and adolescents engaged with street based sex markets.[16][17] This study found the percentage of adolescents who had pimps to be only 14% and that those relationships were typically far more complex, mutual, and companionate than has been reported by social service providers, not-for-profits, and much of the news media.[citation needed]

New York[edit source | editbeta]

The New York State Office of Children and Family Services estimates that New York City is home to more than 2,000 sexually exploited children under 18. At least 85 percent of these youths statewide have had some contact with the child welfare system, mostly through abuse or neglect

proceedings. In New York City, 75 percent have been in foster care.[18] Mishi Faruqee, who is in charge of juvenile justice issues for the Correctional Association of New York, questioned the reliability of the estimate. We believe that number is really an undercount." [19] This is confirmed by SNRG-NYC's New York City population estimate of 2008 which was 3,946. The average age for entry into prostitution is 12 in New York, according to Rachel Lloyd, founder of an organization called GEMS that helps under-age girls in the sex trade. She believes that Many of the guys who buy sex with children would never consider themselves pedophiles. Theyre not necessarily out there looking for 12-year-olds orteenagers. They just kind of dont care."[citation needed] This age of entry claim has been contested by SNRG-NYC whose New York City study found that out of 249 underage prostitutes (48% female and 45% male) who constituted the final statistical sample, the average age of entry into the market was 15.29.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_sexual_exploitation_of_children

What Is Child Sexual Exploitation?

A Definition The NWG Network has developed the following definition which is utilised in the UK government guidance and policy.

The sexual exploitation of children and young people under 18 involves exploitative situations, contexts and relationships where young people (or a third person or persons) receive something (e.g. food, accommodation, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, affection, gifts, money) as a result of performing, and/or others performing on them, sexual activities. Child sexual exploitation can occur through use of technology without the childs immediate recognition, for example the persuasion to post sexual images on the internet/mobile phones with no immediate payment or gain. In all cases those exploiting the child/young person have power over them by virtue of their age, gender, intellect, physical strength and/or economic or other resources.
(The National Working Group for Sexually Exploited Children and Young People, 2008)

A definition of sexual exploitation developed by NWG

Some one taking advantage of you sexually, for their own benefit. Through threats, bribes, violence, humiliation, or by telling you that they love you, they will have the power to get you to do sexual things for their own, or other peoples benefit or enjoyment (including: touching or kissing private parts, sex, taking sexual photos)
As defined by the Young Womens Group, New Horizons: 2008 (the nia project & The Children Society)

Its when you dont know your choices that other people have all the power http://www.nationalworkinggroup.org/who-we-are/what-is-child-sexual-exploitation

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/static-pages/articles/child-sexual-exploitation/