Commercial sexual exploitation of children

The map above showcases the number of human trafficking arrests across the United States.

Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) defines the “umbrella” of crimes and activities that involve inflicting sexual abuse on to a child as a financial or personal opportunity. Commercial Sexual Exploitation consists of forcing a child into prostitution, sex trafficking, early marriage, child sex tourism and any other venture of exploiting children into sexual activities. According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the lack of reporting the crime and “the difficulties associated with identifying and measuring victims and perpetrators” has made it almost impossible to create a national estimate of the prevalence of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the United States. There is an estimated one million children that are exploited for commercial sex globally; of the one million children that are exploited, the majority are girls.

CSEC in the United States

According to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, "Between 244,000 and 325,000 American youth are considered at risk for sexual exploitation, and an estimated 199,000 incidents of sexual exploitation of minors occur each year in the United States ". Within the United States, schools are one of the biggest targets of children becoming trafficked.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, the most recent year for which national data is available, "the actual number of children abused is likely underreported."

Terminology

The Declaration and Agenda for Action, adopted during the First World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1996, formally defines CSEC as:

a fundamental violation of children's rights. It comprises sexual abuse by the adult and remuneration in cash or kind to the child or a third person or persons. The child is treated as a sexual object and as a commercial object. The commercial sexual exploitation of children constitutes a form of coercion and violence against children, and amounts to forced labour and a contemporary form of slavery.

CSEC is often associated with child trafficking, which is defined as "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation," and a child as any person under the age of 18. However, not all trafficked children are trafficked for the purposes of CSEC. Furthermore, the sexual abuse of child trafficking victims at work may not necessarily constitute CSEC. Likewise, CSEC is also part of, but distinct from other forms of child abuse and child sexual abuse, including child rape and domestic violence.

Types

Prostitution

Child prostitution is the use of a child in sexual activities for remuneration." Prostitution is known as one of the oldest types of sexual exploitation. Nearly 80% of adult prostitutes entered the industry between 11 and 14. Prostituted children face risks of damage to their physical and mental health, early pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HIV. They are inadequately protected by the law and may be treated as criminals.

Child sex tourism

Child sex tourism refers to tourism by predators for the purpose of engaging in child prostitution. Sex tourism and sex trafficking generate revenue for countries. In some countries, with economies that rely on the exploitation of women and children, the government encourages child sex touris"Human Trafficking and Prostitution | Essay Examples"m, resulting in low fines for engaging in the sex trade. Many travel agencies offer guides on exotic entertainment, further encouraging men to travel for sexual purposes.

Pornography

Child pornography is the "representation of a child engaged in explicit sexual activities or any representation of the sexual parts of a child for primarily sexual purposes" whether in real life or simulated. When it comes to the representations of child pornography they include and come in many forms being photographs, audiotapes, and especially videos that portray children performing sexual acts with objects, adults even other children. The children are subjected to exploitation, rape, pedophilia, and in extreme cases, murder.

Pornography is often used as a gateway into the sex trade industry. Many pimps force children into pornography as a way of conditioning them to believe that what they are doing is acceptable. Pimps may then use the pornography to blackmail the child and extort money from clients.

The production, possession and distribution of child pornography are prohibited by law and are harshly punished. Child pornography generally involves egregious acts of criminal sexual abuse and exploitation towards children, which are profoundly harmful to the child victims, being a form of child abuse. Those who seek to or are currently participating in the exploitation of children are currently connecting on Internet networks in order to sell, share, and trade material.

Fig.1 Child Pornography Points of Production

	International	National	Regional	Local
Production format	State-of-art technology in audiovisual equipment, development, and mass reproduction process.	Essentially the same as international.	Private developing studios and labs; lower quality material.	Lowest quality of all the markets; relies on retail level technology (instant cameras. Photostats). Direct purchase or exchange, mail.
Distribution methods	Mail, courier, direct sale.	Adult bookstores, mail (commercial and Postal Service), direct sale.	Mail (commercial, U.S.), direct purchase or exchange, adult bookstores.	Direct purchase or exchange, mail.
Producers	Syndicated sex rings, entrepreneurs, and freelance photographers.	Organized crime and freelance pornographers.	Primarily freelance pornographers, with some work hired out on contractual basis by local pimps or pedophiles.	Community or neighborhood pedophiles, sex rings, and pimps.
Evasion techniques	Mobile production and development sites, false identities, multiple disguised mailings of merchandise.	Use of middleman to arrange routine purchases, parental release form, and mobile production and developmental sites.	Transient identities and locations of pornographers, rapid turnover in children used as models, and parental release forms.	Victims coerced or blackmailed into silence; offender's mobility and good reputation often insulate from any suspicion.
Status	Still available, with emphasis on use of Third World youths as models; periodic inroads into traffic by foreign police and U.S. federal law enforcement agencies; reactive nature of police investigations precludes permanent abolition of production and distribution.	Extremely resilient, despite harsh federal laws occasional disruption of the flow of merchandise. Resold in neighboring countries and exported to Asia, Europe, and Africa.	Extremely difficult to intercept on proactive basis. Pimps and pornographers use juvenile hustlers and molested children as subjects. May later emerge in foreign publications. Parental consent binds guilty parties to secrecy; increasing emphasis on suggestive materials.	Pornography made at the local level is the mainstay of the pedophilic subculture; typically discovered during police search or accidentally via postal investigations.

Live streaming sexual abuse

The emergence of these online communities has also boosted and promoted communication between local offenders, both bonding over and normalizing their interest in children, desensitizing them to the physical and psychological damages sometimes anonymously that way they can share without fear of being caught. The advancement of technology has led sex traffickers to "adopt and adapt new online capabilities to target and exploit victims and create 'market' opportunities." Technology is available in almost every aspect of the world, giving sex traffickers easier access entirely.

The growth of the Internet has allowed sex traffickers to make a bigger profit from their illegal activities. For example, cybersex traffickers have the power to share a victim with other sex buyers, opening up a bigger pool of dangerous individuals. Virtual platforms create a more cost-effective approach for sex traffickers, as they don't have to physically transport victims or obtain a physical location.

Causes

The supply and demand for children in the sex trade industry is greatly influenced by the structure of a country. Kevin Bales says the increase of children sold into prostitution reflects the industrial transformation the country has experienced in the last fifty years. Young girls in Thailand are commonly from northern areas. Because of the harshness of the land and a family's dependency on a good harvest, many families see their daughters as commodities.

On the macro-level of causes for child sexual exploitation is the globalization of the consumer market and the influx of new goods and services that encourage new forms of consumerism. The financial incentives presented to parents for their children are frequently irresistible, particularly for those residing at or below the poverty threshold. The children are turned over to the buyer without any knowledge of what they were sold into.

Other macro-level influences include the expansion of construction sites and military bases in developing countries. These installations attract those who wish to sexually exploit children for large sums of money. The men who participate in the sexual exploitation of children at these installations are most often from developed countries and have no regard for the children. "It has been alleged that military personnel figure at a disproportionately high rate in the pedophile exchange lists confiscated by some police departments."

Families who sell their daughters to brothels tend to repeat the pattern with their younger daughters. The younger daughters, however, are more willing to go. This is because their older sisters tell them stories of their extravagant times in the city. The girls admire their sister's western clothes and money. The younger girls then enter into prostitution with little notion of what they are getting themselves into.

Dangers and consequences

Whether the children be in pornography, brothels, or trafficked, they are all at risk for sexually transmitted infections, physical violence, and psychological deterioration. Research has shown that "fifty to ninety percent of children in brothels in Southeast Asia are infected with HIV." In many cases, when children are brought into the sex trade industry, they are beaten and raped until they are so broken they no longer try to escape. Physical hazards can also include infertility, cervical cancer, assault, and sometimes murder. Pregnancy is also a physical risk factor for many children. Much like if they are found to have HIV or AIDS, the girls are thrown out of the brothels with nowhere to go. Many of the children "break the conscious link between mind and body" in order to function in these situations (Bales 221). By doing so, many children begin to think they are nothing more than "whores" and some develop suicidal thoughts. Other psychological risk factors include sleep and eating disorders, gender-disturbed sexual identity, hysteria, and even homicidal rage.

Outside physical and psychological dangers lies fear of the law. Many girls and women are illegally trafficked across borders. If they manage to escape from the brothel or pimp, the women and children quickly come to the attention of the authorities. Because they do not have proper documentation they are detained by the authorities. If they are held in local jails, the women and children often suffer further abuse and exploitation by the police.

Prevalence

See also: Child prostitution § Prevalence

While it is impossible to know the true extent of the problem, given its illegal nature, the International Labour Organization (ILO) global child labour figures "...worldwide that there are 246 million exploited children aged between 5 and 17 involved in debt bondage, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography, the illegal drug trade, the illegal arms trade and other illicit activities around the world."

The Rapid Assessment survey, developed by the ILO's International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), relies on interviews and other, mainly qualitative, techniques, to provide a picture of a specific activity in a limited geographic area.

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."

UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimate that 2 million children are exploited in prostitution or pornography every year.

International agreements

In 1989, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the first international agreement to recognize the human rights of children, with freedom from sexual exploitation included as a basic right. Notably, Article 34 commits countries to "prohibiting inducement or coercion of children into unlawful sex acts, prostitution, or pornography." As of 23 September 2023 all United Nations member states except for the United States have ratified the UNCRC.

In 1996, the First World Congress Against the Commercial Exploitation of Children adopted the Declaration and Agenda for Action, which formally reframed child prostitution as CSEC, and committed participants to develop and enforce national plans of action against CSEC; a follow-up Second World Congress was held in 2001.

Following these conferences, the UN took additional steps to address CSEC. Between 2002 and 2003, the UN adopted the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography, which has more detailed commitments on the protection of children, including reporting and monitoring. The vast majority of countries have also ratified this protocol. Also adopted was the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, which was the first international agreement to formally define human trafficking. Additionally, specialized organizations under the UN (UNICRI, UNODC, ILO, WTO) have established efforts focused on CSEC, including research, data collection, reporting, training, anti-trafficking strategy, and implementation.

The same committee that put the Optional Protocol into action has put more effort into acquiring more accurate data on child sexual exploitation. The 2012 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons shows that with the Protocol in place, countries without a child sexual exploitation offense have nearly halved. At the regional level, criminal convictions of trafficking offenses have increased.

In 2010, the UN instated a Global Plan of Action against Trafficking in Persons. This plan involves strengthening the abilities of law enforcement to identify victims of trafficking, enhance investigations of alleged cases, and prosecute and punish the many corrupt officials who partake in sex trafficking and tourism.

Prevention

Theater about sexual violence against children in Coronel Fabriciano, Brazil

Education

One of the many ways to aid in CSEC prevention is through education. The previously mentioned Protocol requires members to provide preventative measures against child sexual exploitation; among these preventative measures is educating the public, especially families, on the dangers of sex tourism and trafficking. World Vision is one of the leaders in creating these educational opportunities for young girls. Other efforts involve educating police, medical, and school personnel on how to identify CSEC victims and respond in a situation involving CSEC, and educating potential CSEC victims about the tactics recruiters often use to reach at-risk individuals.

Several organizations make a conscious effort to contribute to CSEC prevention. We Are Pact, for example, has three educational initiatives where they actively advocate different individuals to contribute to prevention. These initiatives include the Y-ACT Program, the CSAM Prevention Program, and the PACT Training Institute. The Y-ACT Program contains a series of workshops that aim to discuss child trafficking, healthy relationships, healthy virtual identities, and community as a resource. Y-ACT offers both standalone and series workshops, tailored to the needs of participants in terms of length, curriculum, and age ranges, with a focus on creating a student-centered environment that promotes safety, empowerment, and inclusivity. The CSAM Prevention Program offers a safe environment for parents to learn about identifying trafficking and exploitation warning signs, covering topics such as online safety, managing discussions with youth, and utilizing community resources, with programs available in both English and Spanish at no cost. The PACT Training Institute provides training for professionals working with children on human trafficking, covering red flags and steps to take when concerns arise, aiming to equip staff with confidence in addressing complex issues, ultimately fostering environments where children feel safe to seek help.

Another effort taking great stride in CSEC prevention is the Interdiction for the Protection of Children program, which employs proactive policing tactics aimed at preventing criminal offenses, with a focus on rescuing child victims of sexual abuse and exploitation, as well as those at risk of victimization. Additionally, it conducts investigations to identify offenders and individuals posing a high risk to children, while also gathering intelligence on offender methodologies to inform law enforcement intervention efforts.

What Parents Can Contribute

Prevention starts with early instillment throughout childhood. Children need to be knowledgeable of their bodily autonomy, which parents can instill from an early age. "Body autonomy begins with simple things you can teach your child, starting in their toddler years and reaffirming the lessons as they grow."

There are many ways to start these methods and reaffirm them as a child grows. For example, parents can teach their children the different body parts, emphasizing that it is normal and healthy to talk about this openly. Also, parents can teach them the importance of saying "no" whenever they are in an uncomfortable situation. Last but not least, it is key for parents to emphasize that secrets "should always be shared with a trusted adult."

Privacy

The best form of preventing commercial sexual exploitation of children is privacy. Preventing unknown adults from being around a child can prevent potential groomers from being around a child. INHOPE claims that, "Many groomers perceive the presence of parents as an increased risk of being detected,". In today's time, many groomers approach children online due to the feeling of protection. Creating privacy settings on children's technology can protect from potential traffickers coming in to contact with minors. Monitoring children's online friendships and knowing the signs of a risky friendship can prevent the exposure of sexual exploitation.

• Child sexual abuse
• Cybertip.ca
• Demons of Eden
• ECPAT
• FBI
• Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
• International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour
• Mongolian Gender Equality Center
• OneChild
• Towards the Elimination of the worst forms of Child Labour
• Trafficking in human beings
• Trafficking of children
• United States Postal Inspection Service

Relevant ILO conventions and recommendations

• Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention
• Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation

References

• IACAC-International Agency for Crimes Against Children

Further reading

• Alisa Jordheim (2014). Made in the U.S.A.: The Sex Trafficking of America's Children. HigherLife Publishing. ISBN 978-1939183408.