Child trafficking denotes a type of human smuggling. The United Nations (UN) defines child trafficking as the receipt, recruitment, transfer, transportation, and/or harboring of a kidnapped child for exploitation, slavery, and forced labor purposes (West, 2016) . Although data about the extent of trafficking of children is hard to get, the International Labor Organization (ILO) approximates that ten thousand youngsters are smuggled every year (Peck et al., 2020). As of 2012, the rate of youngster sufferers had increased within a three-year duration from twenty percent to twenty percent (Greenbaum, Yun & Todres, 2018). Annually about three hundred thousand minors are captured from across the globe and traded by human smugglers as slaves (Peck et al., 2020). Roughly twenty-eight percent of the seventeen-thousand individuals transported to the US are youngsters — approximately thirteen children every day (Kaur, 2018). Child trafficking has been transnationally acknowledged as a severe crime that occurs in all regions of the universe and which normally has human rights consequences. Yet, it is just in the last decade that the incidence and implications of this activity have climbed to global importance because of an intense surge in public action and research. It seems that humanitarian crisis, poverty, in addition to poor education result in high rates. A range of potential resolutions have accordingly been recommended and applied, which may be classified as four forms of action: prevention, broad protection, victim assistance, and law enforcement.
Types of trafficking of children
Child traffickers trade children for a variety of reasons. To begin with, children are trafficked for sexual exploitation purposes (Lindholm & Cederborg, 2016). On the word of the ILO, sexual exploitation of youngsters encompasses several activities and practices (Vyas, 2018). The first is child sex tourism. The second is the use of boys and girls in sexual actions compensated in kind or cash (generally termed as child prostitution) indoors or in the streets, in places like discotheques, brothels, massage parlors, hotels, bars, restaurants, and so on. The third is the trafficking of boys and girls and teenagers for the sex deal. The fourth is the use of youngsters in sex exhibitions (private or public). The fifth is distribution, promotion, and production of pornography containing youngsters.
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Although assessing the magnitude of this activity is hard because of its covert and criminal nature, the ILO approximates that there are roughly 1.8 million kids sexually traded globally (Peck et al., 2020). In contrast, UNICEF estimates this figure to be two million (Morgan, 2020). Girls involved in other types of child labor — for instance, street vending or domestic service— are at the greatest risk of being drawn into commercial child sex smuggling. Equally, Lindholm and Cederborg (2016) explain how girls aged twelve and below are elastic and more effortlessly coached into their potential jobs as prostitutes, and for the reason that virginity is greatly valued by some clients ready to compensate a premium”. Furthermore, Kaur (2018) argues that the augmented Internet availability and utilization have functioned as a key source for child traffickers, eventually intensifying the child sex trafficking rate. For instance, during the year 2009, Illinois Sheriff Thomas J. Dart took legal action against the possessors of Craigslist, a famous online classifieds web, because of its “facilitation” and “allowance” of prostitution, principally in youngsters (Lindholm & Cederborg, 2016). In reaction to legal and public pressure, the website has since closed accessibility to its “Adult Services” segment.
Secondly, children are trafficked for the purpose of forced labor. Child labor involves youngsters below a specified lowest age, typically fourteen at the minimum, being forced to work. In 2011, approximately a hundred and fifty million kids aged between five and fourteen in emerging nations were engaged in child labor (Peck et al., 2020). Sixty percent of child laborers work in farming. Study shows that 84.3 percent of child workers work in the countryside area (Greenbaum, Yun & Todres, 2018). About 99.8 percent of kids aged 5-14 are involved in child labor for certain kinds of economic activity within these areas (Peck et al., 2020). Furthermore, the ILO approximates that a hundred and fifteen million minors are involved in a risky job, for instance, the drug or sex trade. Generally, child labor may assume numerous forms, counting domestic slavery, labor in farming, manufacturing industries, and service. Moreover, a majority of children are compelled into cheap and manageable labor and work in farms, homes, restaurants, factories, etc. (Grubb & Bennett, 2012). Youngsters provide cheap labor and are capable of completing tasks that grownups can’t because of their small size. Thus child services have a great demand.
Responding to the rampant cases of child labor, the UN Secretary-General members tried to lessen the violations rates incorporate systems during the year 2011 by applying the UN “Protect, Respect and Remedy” System, a document outlining the guiding standards on transnational companies and other corporations as well as human rights (West, 2016). Endorsed by the Human Rights Council in 2011, the report states three key principles (Kaur, 2018). First is the existing obligation of the state to fulfill, protect and respect fundamental freedoms and human rights. Secondly, the role of an enterprise as a specialized organ of the community performing specified functions should abide by all relevant rules and honor human rights. The third principle is the necessity for obligations and rights to be aligned with effective and appropriate remedies when violated. The intervention tried to create a general insight into the right employment circumstances and specified penalties for those companies who breach the guiding standards (West, 2016). Moreover, exploration of the long-lasting penalties for workers whose human rights were breached was publicized. Nevertheless, in the year 2018, a study established that still two-hundred and eighteen million minors were employed full-time, several of which are hired by plant proprietors to reduce production costs (Greenbaum, Yun & Todres, 2018).
The third reason normally why children are trafficked is to be used in drug dealings. Precisely, youngsters are smuggled into use as either drug dealers or couriers and then ‘compensated’ with drugs so that they develop an addiction and become further trapped. Because of the illegal nature of drug smuggling, youngsters who are arrested are usually handled as crooks, when in actuality, they are normally the ones needing legal aid. Study shows that children engaged in the drug dealings are in considerably greater danger of involving in violence, predominantly homicide (Peck et al., 2020).
The fourth reason why children are trafficked is to be used in the armed forces. Convention on the Rights of the Child’s protocol, The Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, was officially implemented by the United Nations in the year 2000 (Vyas, 2018). The protocol basically asserts that although volunteers under eighteen years may voluntarily enter the armies, they can’t be enrolled. It states that state parties will take every possible step to ensure that their army member who is below eighteen years does not play a direct role in conflicts. In spite of this, the ILO approximates that a significant number of boys and girls are presently forcibly conscripted into the armies (Morgan, 2020). These children are then be utilized in various distinct manners: Direct parts in warfare (combat roles), for political gain (for instance, for propaganda motives), supporting roles (for example, spies or messengers). Furthermore, research reveals that underage female soldiers should be uniquely acknowledged, as they are particularly susceptible to sexual violence acts. The prevalence of child militaries was the center of the Kony 2012 crusade, which intended to capture, a Ugandan warfare criminal called Joseph Kony, who is accountable for the smuggling of many child militaries in addition to sex slaves (Grubb & Bennett, 2012).
Fifthly, youngsters might be smuggled for adoption purposes, principally transnational adoption. Babies are kidnapped or obtained from children’s homes, or the parent might be coerced, cajoled, or tricked into surrendering custody (West, 2016). Then, infamous transnational adoption organizations organize transnational adoptions, where they charge huge fees to potential adoptive parents. According to Morgan (2020), the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation regarding Inter-country Adoption denotes a transnational agreement intended to safeguard youngsters from these kinds of exploitation and to assist in stopping these illegal transnational adoptions.
Lastly, children may be trafficked for child begging purposes. Involuntary child begging refers to a form of begging where girls and boys below 18 years are coerced to beg via physical and psychological force (Vyas, 2018). Begging is the act of requesting cash as donations on the streets. Involuntary begging is a sector that youngsters are smuggled into, with a study showing that thirteen percent of victims of trafficking have been smuggled for forced begging purposes (Peck et al., 2020). The United Nations rules uphold that the receipt transportation, recruitment, harboring, or transfer of a youngster for the exploitation purpose will be perceived as ‘trafficking in persons’ even when this does not entail some of the methods described in subsection (a) of the article (Greenbaum, Yun & Todres, 2018). With this description, the conveyance of a minor to a city center for the begging purposes amounts to trafficking irrespective of if this procedure was required by a relative or third party.
The severity of child trafficking is beginning to get worldwide acknowledgment, with the International Labor Organization, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the United Nations, the European Union (EN), and others, starting to underscore its relevance (Peck et al., 2020). The EU’s Brussels Declaration on Combating and Preventing Trafficking encompasses child begging as a type of trafficking, claiming that human trafficking is a worrying and abhorrent phenomenon entailing forced labor exploitation, sexual exploitation in situations similar to slavery, mistreatment in begging, and childhood crime in addition to domestic bondage (Kaur, 2018). This matter is particularly challenging to control considering that involuntary begging is normally executed by relatives, with paternal control leveraged over a kid to make sure that begging is executed.
Causes of Trafficking of Children
Numerous reasons contribute to high rates of child trafficking. First, poverty is the world’s major reason for the trafficking of children (Fedina, Williamson & Perdue, 2019). Normally, parents are incapable of providing for their households and consequentially misuse their kids for monetary motives. This results in kids being more prone to accept more hazardous tasks so as to sustain themselves as well as their family members. The choice for a parent to expose a child to trafficking, because of poverty, is not all the time because of money motivations, but similarly, since a deficiency in education makes them think that relocation to a different place would offer the child additional opportunities, which would facilitate them to run away from long-lasting poverty. At times babies are made orphans due to poverty, which leaves them in the child traffickers’ hands. About a hundred and twenty million kids are dwelling on the streets worldwide (sixty million within South America, thirty million within Africa, and thirty million within Asia), which makes children more vulnerable and therefore easy targets (Grubb & Bennett, 2012).
The second cause of child trafficking is the humanitarian crisis. Statistics show that child trafficking is twenty to thirty percent greater following natural calamities (Peck et al., 2020). This was witnessed following the 2010 earthquake and 2015 earthquake in Haiti. The upsurge of trafficking for sex after natural calamities leads to the oppression of females below eighteen years, precisely thirty-three percent of underage girls in those kinds of regions (Peck et al., 2020). The explanation is amplified financial instability and vulnerability that emerge once natural calamities strike.
The third reason is the lack of education. Poor education and illiteracy make a family more susceptible to child traffickers (Fedina, Williamson & Perdue, 2019). Often, parents are uninformed about the adverse impacts of trafficking a child and happily give their kids away. Furthermore, youngsters are usually unaware of their human rights and do not know which of their human rights are breached. Thus, there is a necessity to teach youngsters about their rights, since it would lessen the probability of being manipulated and forced into industry work. Enlightening youngsters of their rights to learning would upsurge the level of overall admission as well as grade completion.
The fourth cause of child trafficking is voluntary migration. During the year 2013, young migrants, aged between fifteen and twenty-four years, represented twelve percent of aggregate immigration. Often, the phrase “child trafficking” is abused when relocation is intentional (Peck et al., 2020). “Youth migration” is where a young person chooses to depart from home to access opportunities somewhere else (Vyas, 2018). Opportunities like employment, quality education, and adventure are normally limited in countryside regions, which is the reason relocation happens from the countryside to town regions. Roughly twenty-seven million youth exit their motherlands to pursue work overseas as transnational immigrants (Fedina, Williamson & Perdue, 2019). To make immigration more secure for young people, the United Nations implemented “Addressing immigration challenges and opportunities is essential to realizing sustainable social and economic development” to their novel development objectives that are to be an issue in the year 2030 (Fedina, Williamson & Perdue, 2019).
Impacts of child trafficking
Child trafficking has major effects on the child, the family, the community, and the nation as a whole. Greenbaum, Yun and Todres (2018) argue that the trafficking of children has the most substantial effect on smuggled youngsters. To begin with, trafficking may cause permanent injury or even the death of the smuggled kid. This may be as a result of an unsafe “movement” phase of trafficking or particular parts of the “exploitation” phase, like dangerous working conditions. Furthermore, trafficked youngsters are normally declined access to healthcare, efficiently raising their risks of death and severe injury. Moreover, trafficked youngsters are usually subject to household violence; they can be starved or beaten to ensure compliance (Peck et al., 2020). Additionally, trafficked children often face drug abuse; they can be offered drugs as “compensation” or to make sure that they develop an addiction and therefore become reliant on the traffickers. Contrasted with several other categories of delinquency, the trauma suffered by trafficked children is frequently repeated and prolonged, resulting in serious psychological effects. Study shows that children who are trafficked struggle with anxiety, depression, plus post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Lindholm & Cederborg, 2016). The exposure of trafficked youngsters to activities like drug abuse and prostitution prompts them to health issues such as addiction and STDs, including HIV/AIDs. The trafficked children involve in unsafe sexual acts, high-risk pregnancies, unsafe abortions, as well as unwanted pregnancies (Lindholm & Cederborg, 2016).
Similarly, impacts on relatives are serious too. Some relatives think that sending or permitting their kids to migrate to find employment would earn extra revenue, although, in reality, numerous family members would not ever again see their smuggled kids. Furthermore, a study has established that some types of trafficking, predominantly sexual exploitation in young girls, bring “disgrace” to the family (Kaur, 2018). Consequently, in some instances, children who escape from the hands of the trafficker might go back to their families simply to discover that they are ostracized and rejected.
Moreover, child trafficking has a significant impact on the community. If manifold youngsters within a community are smuggled, it may lead to the whole community being corrupted and consequently ruined by child trafficking. Social development plants are inhibited as the education of trafficked children is discontinued (Peck et al., 2020). Due to this deficiency in education, youngsters who escape from the hands of the traffickers may be less capable of securing employment in future. Additionally, girls who are trafficked distinct encounter difficulties since their views about marriage may be weakened if the society learns that they have been smuggled, mostly into sexual exploitation (Lindholm & Cederborg, 2016).
On the countrywide level, economic growth is seriously inhibited by the deficiency in the education of children who are trafficked; this leads to a significant loss of possibly prolific future workforces (Morgan, 2020). Youngsters who successfully escape from traffickers and return to their relatives usually pose a major financial liability, because of their poor education, in addition to the injuries and illnesses they might have sustained in the course of trafficking job. What is more, there are significant costs connected to the rehabilitation of the children who are trafficked to enable them to contribute to their communities effectively. Additionally, the lingering trafficking of children shows the existence of continued criminal networks and criminal activity, which, in a majority of instances, are also linked to violence and drugs (Greenbaum, Yun & Todres, 2018). Consequently, child trafficking is cited as a major indicator of global and national security threats (Grubb & Bennett, 2012).
Suggested Solutions
Answers to the trafficking of children, or “anti-trafficking measure”, may be categorized into four categories: broad protection (to inhibit youngsters and ex-victims from being re-trafficked); prevention (of the child trafficking crime in addition to the exploitation that is its outcome); law enforcement (particularly in a labor context and applying to labor regulations and laws); protection (all measures towards the amendments of their grievance, restoration and facilitating in establish them) (Foot, Toft & Cesare, 2015).
Broad protection measures are fueled towards youngsters who might be smuggled and consist of raising awareness regarding the trafficking of a child, mainly in susceptible societies (Fedina, Williamson & Perdue, 2019). Moreover, such outreach encompasses strategies fueled towards enhancing the economic status of susceptible households so that rational options are obtainable to them instead of sending their kids away to pursue employment. These alternatives include, for instance, increasing job opportunities for grownups and provisional cash transfer initiatives. An additional key extensive protection intervention that has been freely sanctioned by organizations such as UNICEF, the ILO, and UN.GIFT entails enabling gender equity, precisely by improving both girls’ and boys’ access to reasonably priced, quality learning (Peck et al., 2020). Additional types of protection and resources include suitably situated clean water, hospitals, and financial literacy, and sustainable environments.
An additional method to raise awareness for the trafficking of children is by societies from across the globe devoting one week to the situation, marking the 2012 Human Trafficking Awareness Day within the United States and the broader world (Foot, Toft & Cesare, 2015). Community associations together with law enforcement agencies, are working together to arrange events and comprehensive information conferences and support organizations for the sufferers. The sessions held by societies could are guest speakers, films, booths, etc., which may assist persons to recognize the severity of this matter. The ICE possesses a support line for sufferers and carries out awareness campaigns in the US societies via the ICE in Plain Sight Campaign (Grubb & Bennett, 2012).
Preventative measures focus more on tackling the actual activity of trafficking of children, precisely by executing legal frameworks which are intended to both prosecute and deter child traffickers (Kaur, 2018). This entails the implementation and adoption of transnational labor standards of the ILO, along with the establishment of secure and lawful migration operations.
Law enforcement is the actual prosecution of child traffickers. According to UNICEF, effective prosecution of traffickers of children is the most guaranteed technique to convey the message that the trafficking of children won’t be endured (Foot, Toft & Cesare, 2015). Child traffickers may be “arrested” at one of the three stages of trafficking: exploitation, recruitment, and/or movement; anti-trafficking rules along with child labor laws should then be properly imposed and having them executed. Furthermore, UNICEF has suggested the establishment of public surveillance systems that will allow communities to report child trafficking signs to the authorities instantly. Nevertheless, certain anti-trafficking organizations, for instance, the Young Women’s Empowerment Project, oppose collaborating with police because of instances in which police officers played a part in exploiting the victims. For example, on 14 June 2016, Oakland Law enforcement officials were accused of having been engaged in the sex scandal that involves an adolescent prostitute, counting some when she was supposedly underage (Peck et al., 2020).
Protection starts first with the identification of the victim. Laws pertaining to child trafficking should appropriately and specifically outline what amounts to the “victim of trafficking” (Fedina, Williamson & Perdue, 2019). Legal procedures should then be put in place to remove youngsters from trafficking circumstances and take them back to their relatives or other suitable environments. Also, sufferers must be offered supportive and individualized psychological and physical rehabilitation to establish themselves. Trauma-informed initiatives, survivor-led hubs, prevention education interventions, in addition to other recovery and public assimilation initiatives, are alternatives too. Youth-specific susceptibilities like poor education, mistrust, lack of family, homelessness, forced relationships, lack of socialization, and drug abuse may produce difficulties during rehabilitation for certain youngsters (Greenbaum, Yun & Todres, 2018). Some academics recommend rights-centered development, in which the survivors, victims, and vulnerable youth must be capable of participating in the preparation of programs and have continuous participation so as to create leadership and independence (Grubb & Bennett, 2012). This restoration may consume a significant duration of time. Nonetheless, with the person having the right support, he/she may be able to work towards a useful life.
Furthermore, measures need to be taken to prevent “double victimization” — that is, to make sure that previously trafficked youngsters are handled not as criminals but as victims (Vyas, 2018). For instance, “double victimization” could occur when a youngster who was unlawfully smuggled into sexual exploitation in America, and later, when liberated from trafficking, is sued for being an illicit immigrant. The End Trafficking Project refers to a program that raises awareness regarding the trafficking of a child and helps individuals take measures to safeguard children (Foot, Toft & Cesare, 2015). The UNICEF has discovered techniques to aid youngsters from child mistreatment and the risk aspects which should be tackled. The organization helps parents to offer a living salary so that the youngsters will not be forced to provide for the family. It pushes governments to establish rules and reinforce child protection schemes to stop abuse and violence. Also, the agency works with organizations and communities to amend societal customs that make youngsters more susceptible to exploitation.
Trafficking of children is a threat that is acknowledged by regional, national, and international organizations. Some federal and international regulations are intended to deter the activity or deal with the culprit. Also, the policies are intended to rehabilitate youngsters involved in trafficking besides safeguarding them from the impacts of the activity. In the US, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) is the key policy that tackles the safeguard of youngsters from trafficking, the penalty of the traffickers, and the re-establishment of survivors into society (Vyas, 2018). National authorities have been capable of using this legislation successfully to reduce the child trafficking practice. There have been drops in the number of sufferers. TVPA has a requirement that allows preys to be sponsored by the national government with the offering of benefits in addition to other services which are imperative for their existence within the nation.
The UN is a body that leads in the safeguard of children’s rights by formulating numerous rules for member nations that are intended to curtailing the practice. The agency has units devoted to counteracting the trafficking of children. Punishments are imposed on member states that fail to put measures in place (Kaur, 2018). It funds programs in countries that are vulnerable to child trafficking.
Another intervention that is pertinent to the trafficking of children is the Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URM) initiative that is managed by the United States Department of Human and Health Services (HHS) (Fedina, Williamson & Perdue, 2019). Under this program, youngsters have access to several services which are offered in regions constructive for rehabilitation. Additional services offered under URM are healthcare, intensive case management, training, counseling, and social services the trafficked children were denied in their traffickers’ hands. The program functions as the key authority responsible for child trafficking victims who might not know about their parents. For victims with relations, the initiative helps in the reunion of youngsters with their relatives in various regions of the nation with the accessible repatriation amenities reunifying the children with their families in other regions of the globe (Foot, Toft & Cesare, 2015). The policy is imperative since it guides the interaction between the trafficked youngsters, the traffickers, as well as the pertinent authorities.
The United States also uses border control to curb the human trafficking issue. Of late, transnational transportation has developed at an extremely rapid rate thanks to the effective transportation means in use (Grubb & Bennett, 2012). These means have, in part, resulted in the high incidence of child trafficking. Steps that have been taken involve travel limitations for certain capacities. Travelers are inspected at the main points of entry of a nation to identify any likely type of child trafficking. The deployment of technology to manage the actions of child traffickers has gathered speed too, where the United States leads in the use of exceptional technology to prevent any tried child trafficking.
According to Greenbaum, Yun and Todres, (2018), these steps have not helped decrease the incidences of human trafficking, particularly trafficking of children. Among the explanations why the implemented interventions have not been successful in lessening child trafficking include the collaboration of the child sufferers with the traffickers and the traffickers’ aptitude to escape tricks. A majority of the preys are not aware of the destiny that they are expected to have in the novel ‘greener pastures.’ Often, the victims collaborate with smugglers who usually utilize legal methods to get the prey to a different nation. As a result, the legal authorities face difficulties in attempting to identify child traffickers and their prey. They merely discover after a protracted time in their visit.
Recommendations and Conclusion
More effort needs to be put into disciplining the culprits of child trafficking, counting the establishment of laws intended to punish them. These rules will not be successful if the prospective targets are at risk. Thus empowering the at-risk population is crucial. Also, there is a necessity to enlighten the population about the threats that it might encounter while taking part in the child trafficking practice. Moreover, the provision of rudimentary education would be imperative in lessening the incidence of trafficking of children. The additional essential intervention that needs to be implemented is timely identification of the child trafficking victims and the provision of work for at-risk populations. Trafficking of the child remains a major threat to the US and the world at large. Only with a combined effort by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private corporations, governments, and most importantly communities, can there be the hope of ending the threat of child trafficking.
References
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