Child trafficking, defined by the Palermo Protocol (2000), involves the illegal procurement, relocation, and forced exploitation of children, usually for labor or sexual exploitation. Anyone involved in recruiting, moving, containing, receiving, or exploiting children illegally is party to child trafficking.
The Palermo Protocol emphasizes that even if a child was aware of and agreed to being moved, they haven’t given valid consent due to their age. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 outlines that anyone facilitating the movement of another person for exploitation commits an offense.
Reasons why children are trafficked:
- Cheap and exploitative labor (forced labor, domestic servitude)
- Sexual exploitation
- Debt bondage
- Child marriage
- Recruitment into armed groups, etc.
Can we add poverty here? Because adults could consent to being trafficked for a change in life situations. Children trafficked for forced labor endure hard, manual work, often in unsafe environments. Male children are mostly victims, working on farms, while female counterparts are subjected to being house helps.
Sections 11 of the Child Rights Law state:
11. Right to dignity of the child – Every child is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person. No child shall be subjected to physical, mental, or emotional injury, abuse, neglect, or maltreatment, including sexual abuse, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, or punishment, attacks upon his honor or reputation, or held in slavery or servitude.
Having a domestic help with the parents’ consent and ensuring such an individual is put in school or learns a useful skill for the future should be allowed. Such a child should not be termed a domestic help to avoid infringing on their dignity. Treat them as you treat your children and avoid discrimination.
Alot of the time, people patronize traffickers for children because their wage is cheap, they are easy to control, and can be taken advantage of due to their lack of awareness of their rights. The fact that they are traffickers is, in itself, a crime. Anyone contracting another to procure a child as a domestic help and agreeing to pay the child’s wage is guilty of human trafficking.
Another prominent form of child trafficking is for sexual exploitation. Sex trafficking predominantly affects girls, with up to 94% of victims thought to be female. Female victims are chosen because they are seen as having a long shelf-life, being sellable and re-sellable. Underaged girls are often found in brothels and on the streets around clubhouses.
It is important to note that the crime of trafficking is not limited to our country; it is a transnational crime and the third most lucrative business globally. Traffickers develop tactics to become invisible.
It may interest us to know that traffickers now use social media to get their victims. Increased access to the internet via social media has made our children and young adults vulnerable. There are applications and sites where children chat with strangers who gradually groom them until they become victims. Snapchat is one app we must be careful about as conversations cannot be traced.
How does trafficking happen?
It starts with grooming, befriending, and establishing an emotional connection for exploiting that connection. Grooming makes a child dependent on their trafficker, enabling manipulation into cooperating in their own exploitation. Trafficking happens quickly, taking only 8 days from online contact to in-person meeting. Traffickers identify victims’ vulnerabilities and needs, responding with gifts, economic and emotional support, or the promise of love, resembling a romantic partner.
We have cases of young girls leaving home without a trace, not because they’ve been hypnotized, but due to traffickers isolating them from friends and family. Traffickers gain information to blackmail victims, maintaining control through threats, drugs, alcohol, and demands for sex, labor, or forced criminality as payment. Children and teens are trafficked online, recruited through dating apps, video games, and social media.
The quest to get rich quick is now a serious vulnerability factor.
What can we do?
Parents/guardians can keep kids safe from trafficking by developing and sustaining healthy relationships, spending quality time together, and checking in often. Educate children early and often about healthy relationships and sexual development. Show love, provide essential needs, teach contentment, and monitor their peers.
If uncomfortable discussing this with them, involve school counselors or professionals. Answer every question honestly to enable informed decisions. Be interested in their lives, stay current with trends, and guide them through potential risks online. Recognize signs of trafficking, such as withdrawal, anxiety, depression, self-harm, academic decline, new unhealthy friendships, expensive gifts, unexplained money, aches, pains, and STIs.
Keep educating yourself about trafficking and visit StopTraffickingProject.com for more resources. Join hands to identify and rescue victims, collectively report perpetrators to law enforcement agencies. If you see something, say something.”
