Exploitation of children

Childreach
Monday, 17 December 2001

Plan participated in the Second World Congress against Commercial Exploitation of Children Yokohama, Japan from December 17-20.

Mouniratou Ali - 15 - Togo

At the age of 15, Mouniratou was taken from her village in Togo by a female relative to spend a year in Libreville, Gabon as a domestic servant.

Mouniratou's relative promised her parents that she would take good care of her, but on the boat to Libreville she ran out of money. She decided to pay the boat owners by allowing them to keep Mouniratou and do whatever they wanted with her. She was sexually abused for three months.

By the time the boat reached Libreville, Mouniratou was pregnant. Forced by her guardian to work a 12-hour day, carrying heavy loads and denied nutritious food or medical attention she developed serious complications during childbirth. Later, she was found to be HIV positive.

Eventually, with the assistance of the Togalese Embassy in Gabon, Mouniratou was returned to Togo. She is now protected by a rehabilitation programme run by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Plan, and is being helped to come to terms with her ordeal, and to reintegrate into her home village.

Manmaya - 15 - Nepal

Manmaya, 15 went missing in 1994, along with her new husband.

Three years later, her friends and family in Nepal discovered that her husband was in prison and Manmaya had fallen prey to human traffickers who had taken her to work in an Indian brothel.

Manmaya's family would like to bring those who abducted her to justice, but as her birth was never registered and there is no proof of her existence, her citizenship or her marriage Nepalese police say they cannot investigate.

Plan warns the Congress about the dangers of child traffickers for 'lost children', that is those born without being registered or receiving a birth certificate, of which Mouniratou and Manamaya are only two of the many cases.

Around 40 million children are born each year without being registered. These 'lost children' can be denied the right to a passport, identification papers and are easy prey for middlemen who arrive in their villages and offer parents cash in return for taking one of their children to the city and a better life. Children taken by middlemen are usually exploited for sex work or cheap labor.

Every year, around one million children - mainly girls - are lured into the multi-million dollar commercial sex trade. Many are targeted by sex traffickers because they are poor, vulnerable and have no identification papers, which means they are less likely to run away.

'Thousands of children slip through the net,' said Marie Staunton Chief Executive Plan UK. 'Without a means of identification they are very difficult to trace, and it is almost impossible to prosecute the traffickers because no-one can prove where the children came from or how old they are. In the Philippines, half the prosecutions against those who buy and sell child prostitutes fail because of this issue.'

Plan is calling for governments to account for their 'lost children' by creating national and local systems for registering births, and making these compulsory, flexible and free of charge. Such schemes must fit around the needs of the community.

In Indonesia, for example, volunteers have been trained to go into villages to help people apply for birth certificates.

'In the villages where Plan is working we have found that prevention is always better than cure. Trafficking is a taboo subject and parents are reluctant to acknowledge it exists. But it is far better to nip it in the bud than deal with its consequences' says Marie Staunton.

In Nepal, girls as young as 11 are sent to work in Bombay brothels. Their chances of escape are slim, but even if they do manage to return to their villages they are often shunned and it is difficult to reintegrate them back into the local community.

Ensuring that children have identity papers at birth is just one of the grassroots ways in which Plan is working to prevent child-trafficking at source.

Others have included setting up credit schemes, and funding income boosting activities like vegetable growing so that villagers can feed and educate their children at home. Children themselves are taught to be wary of strangers and perform street dramas on the dangers to their friends.

'A birth certificate is the first tool in a powerful armory against trafficking - and perhaps the most simple. It gives a child an identity, and with that comes some protection from those who seek to take advantage of those who cannot be accounted for, and who are as a result the most at risk' says Marie Staunton, Plan UK Chief Executive.

For more information, or to contact Childreach, see their website at: www.childreach.org