[Cool Teen Sites]
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION
WORLD OF WORK
No. 19, March 1997
New weapons against child trafficking in Asia
Commercial sexual exploitation of children has become an issue of global concern, and
appears to be on the rise. Children are increasingly being bought and sold across national
borders by organized networks for work in sweatshops and brothels. The ILO has
launched a new programme to eliminate the practice.
In Asia, trafficking in children both between and within various countries is on the
increase. In recent
years, large numbers of children from Cambodia, China, Laos and Myanmar have been forced
to
work as prostitutes in Thailand. Both girls and boys from poor rural areas are lured by
professional
recruiters and traffickers with promises of legitimate jobs in Thailand's booming economy.
The
trafficking routes are well known, but are difficult to close down. Girls from Myanmar are
brought
into Thailand through various border checkpoints. In Cambodia, they arrive via several
transit points
into Thailand. Girls from south China enter by way of Myanmar, and children from Laos are
brought
across the Mekong River into various provinces in north and northeast Thailand.
According to the Thai Police Crime Suppression Bureau, more than half of the girls and
young
women removed from brothels in Thailand over the last few years were from Myanmar and
China.
In October 1994, 80 out of 152 girls removed from brothels in Bangkok were from Myanmar.
In
February 1995, 10 out of 23 rescued in Khon Khaen Province came from Myanmar and China. So
did 17 of 19 girls brought out of brothels in Chiang Mai Province in March 1995. Aside
from
prostitution, children from Myanmar are also commonly found in Thailand near the border
with
Myanmar working in construction sites, gas stations, restaurants and on fishing boats.
Widespread traffic
But child trafficking is by no means restricted to south-east Asia. In south Asia,
thousands of Nepali
and Bangladeshi girls and women are reportedly sold every year to brothels in Calcutta,
Bombay
and Delhi. The Government of Nepal estimates that in 1992, at least 200,000 Nepalese women
and
girls were working as prostitutes in India. In fact, the governments of both of these
countries
acknowledge the problem. In Bangladesh, the Government estimates that several thousand
women
and children have fallen victim to trafficking for work, including prostitution, in south
Asia and the
Middle East. Other reports suggest that the problem may also exist in Pakistan and Sri
Lanka,
among others; child prostitution in Sri Lanka, mostly of boys, has also emerged as a
serious
problem.
Fighting the problem
In the face of the increasing evidence of child trafficking, the International Labour
Organization
(ILO) has launched a new programme aimed at eliminating child prostitution and other
intolerable
forms of child labour in ten Asian countries. It specifically targets children under 18
who are at risk
and are victims of trafficking in the Mekong Basin and in south Asia. Priority is given to
girls,
children from ethnic minorities and tribal populations, and to children under 12 years of
age. The
programme, carried out by the ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child
Labour
(IPEC) (see box p. 23) cover Cambodia, China, Thailand and its neighbouring countries and
Vietnam, as well as Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
IPEC has initiated several activities in the field, which will be the basis for this
programme. A 1995
child labour workshop in Nepal included child trafficking in the national framework of
action, and
assistance has been provided to NGOs in undertaking preventive measures against such
trafficking
in follow-up action on the Stockholm Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of
Children
(August 1996) and in the formulation of a draft national plan of action. In Bangladesh,
IPEC is
preparing a project document for joint activities of the Government with the ILO and
UNICEF. The
problem of child prostitution was highlighted at a national workshop on child labour held
in Sri
Lanka in September 1996.
The ILO considers child trafficking to be a form of forced labour, in flagrant violation
of the ILO's
Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29). This international standard calls for countries
to
"suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms within the shortest
possible period".
All of the countries covered by the new ILO-IPEC programme, except China, have ratified
this
Convention and are bound by its terms. The ILO is also calling for the adoption of a new
international convention focusing on the most intolerable forms of child labour, including
hazardous
occupations, slavery, servitude, forced labour, bonded labour, serfdom and prostitution.
Programme targets
The aim of the ILO-IPEC programme is to develop and strengthen special task forces on
child
trafficking at the national and provincial levels in each of the participating countries.
These task
forces will be composed of governmental and non-governmental organizations, and the ILO
will
assist in the formulation and adoption of national plans of action. All aspects of the
issue will be
covered, including prevention, monitoring and enforcement, the provision of assistance to
potential
victims and their families, awareness-raising campaigns, and the social protection,
rehabilitation and
repatriation of the exploited children.
January 1997 saw the beginning of the first phase of the programme, thanks to the
financial support
of the Government of the United Kingdom, and will last six months. This phase will involve
the
preparation of country reports, including facts and figures on the scope and magnitude of
the
problem, an analysis of existing legislation, enforcement practices and gaps, and an
assessment of
the strengths and weaknesses of existing responses. Model strategies will be developed and
two
subregional consultations will be carried out, in Thailand and Nepal, to design and adopt
a
comprehensive coordinated programme to stop child trafficking in each subregion.
Organizations
already active in the field will participate in these consultations, as will potential new
partners in the
public and private sectors, and experts in key technical areas such as legislation, law
enforcement,
education and social services.
The trafficking of children for their commercial exploitation in prostitution or other
illegal sexual
practices, together with the use of children for the production of pornography, has been
condemned
by the ILO as an "affront to the conscience of humankind" which cannot be
tolerated in any society.
The IPEC programme and the proposed Convention on child labour are two new weapons in the
ILO's arsenal for dealing with these problems.
IPEC
Launched in 1992, the IPEC programme is designed to help countries build up a permanent
capacity to address the problem of child labour. It fosters the development of an
effective
partnership between government services, employers' organizations, trade unions,
non-governmental organizations and other interested parties including universities and the
media.
IPEC activities are aimed at three priority groups:
* children working under forced labour conditions and in bondage;
* children in hazardous working conditions and occupations;
* very young working children (under 12 years of age) and girls.
ILO-IPEC is now operational in 27 countries around the world: Argentina, Bangladesh,
Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, the
Philippines, Peru, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, the United Republic of Tanzania, and
Venezuela.
Revealing a hidden tragedy
The number of working children around the world remains elusive. Because it is often
illegal and
clandestine, child labour lies beyond the reach of conventional demographic or labour
statistics.
But change is on the way. New survey methods are penetrating the screen of obscurity which
has
concealed the problem from public view for too long. The findings of ILO surveys testing a
new and
more accurate methodology reveal a desperate situation, in magnitude far beyond what was
earlier
supposed:
* Some 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are working in developing
countries -
120 million full-time, 130 million part-time.
* About 61% of these children, or nearly 153 million are found in Asia, 32%, or 80
million, in
Africa and 7%, or 17.5 million in Latin America.
* Child labour exists in many industrialized countries as well, and is emerging in East
European and
Asian countries whose economies are in transition.
For further information, please contact Bureau of Public Information (PRESSE) at Tel:
+41.22.799.7940 or Fax: +41.22.799.8577.