CRINMAIL 1179

In this issue:

Editorial: An inquiry into trafficking and children's rights

The football World Cup is often touted as a force for good. It presents a unique opportunity for global unity and for the host nation to present a positive image to the world.

With the 2010 World Cup now in full swing, however, questions are being asked about the darker side of such events. One issue that prompts particular concern from child rights activists, government officials and donors alike, is trafficking in children.

In this context, today's CRINMAIL aims to provoke debate around what trafficking really means, clarify how it differs from other forms of exploitation or from voluntary migration, ask whether the focus on trafficking eclipses other important issues, and raise questions about the role that politics have played in addressing and distorting the issue.

What does trafficking really mean?

On the face of it, trafficking in children seems a straightforward example of exploitation in its cruelest form. The reality, however, is much more complicated. During the 1990s, concern about the negative impacts of globalisation began to soar, with national governments increasingly losing their grip on immigration and transnational crime. The 2000 UN Convention on Transnational Crime and its protocol ‘to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children (the Palermo Protocol) was, at least in part, born out of such fears. The practice of trafficking can be difficult to define but, according to the Palermo Protocol, it refers to:

“the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”

However, many States tend to confuse trafficking in children with the sale of children, prohibiting the former but not the latter. While these violations overlap, they are not the same - for example, a child can be trafficked without being sold at any point as trafficking requires only the physical transfer of a child and needs neither a buyer nor a seller. The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre further clarifies that a child can be sold without being trafficked since the sale of a child does not require any movement within or across borders at all. For more information, read UNICEF Innocenti's Handbook on the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

Trafficking in children and the sale of children are separate but equally important issues, and must be treated as such. Indeed, article 35 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (OPSC) oblige States to take measures to prevent both. Article 3 of the OPSC sets out specific acts that must be criminalised, and all States should work towards fully complying with this obligation. 

There are also serious concerns about the link between trafficking in children and other forms of exploitation. According to ECPAT International, “all child victims of trafficking are made highly vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation because they are removed from familiar support structures, such as their families and communities.” With this in mind, there has been considerable attention paid to trafficking in both women and children for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Studies and initiatives have often focused specifically on sexual exploitation, although many have also addressed exploitation more broadly to include domestic work and other forms of labour, forced marriage, and adoption, among others.

The impact of global events

Attention on trafficking, particularly for purposes of sexual exploitation, soars in anticipation of major sporting events like the World Cup as activists worry about the opportunities such events afford, and media outlets seize the opportunity to sensationalise an issue. Horrific personal stories, which may only be remotely related to trafficking practices, are identified as 'the norm' and as representative of a huge black market in women and children. Each time the World Cup approaches, newspaper articles begin to describe the perils for thousands of trafficked women and children, seemingly one and the same, who flood the host country at the hands of sinister criminal gangs. Yet the figures quoted are often mere estimations that are later discredited in the aftermath of the event. In the 2006 World Cup, for example, it was very widely reported that around 40,000 women and girls were set to be trafficked into the host country, Germany. A report by the Council of the European Union, published in 2007, however, found no evidence ‘whatsoever’ of any increase in the numbers of people trafficked or forced into prostitution.

South African President Jacob Zuma has himself spoken out about the perils of child trafficking during the present World Cup. It remains to be seen whether the concerns will be similarly ill-founded, and South Africa, where millions of children suffer from poverty and hunger, is a very different place to Germany. But it nevertheless seems that huge interest in the issue is skewing child rights programming, and some are angry that vast funds have been spent on misplaced initiatives and priorities.

Joan van Niekerk, of Childline South Africa, told CRIN: “We have been absolutely flooded with thousands of pamphlets warning about trafficking. But there is nothing being done on the ground to address the factors that make children vulnerable.” Van Niekerk said that schools have been shut to reduce the risk of trafficking – yet 70 per cent of children are reliant on school feeding programmes. “We have millions of hungry and unsupervised children in the country at the moment. Pamphlets on trafficking mean very little when your tummy is empty. International donors who don’t understand the reality on the ground are deciding where the money is spent, and people are swayed by the money because they have staff to pay. We need a big wake- up call.”

The politics of trafficking

The number of people involved in the trafficking trade is notoriously difficult to assess, partly because of practical barriers to measuring an underground and illicit trade, but also because of difficulties in defining the term ‘trafficking’ and dissociating the practice from migration. The Asian Migrant Centre* argues that understanding this migration/trafficking distinction is key for human rights activists:

“It must be emphasised that migration is the general phenomenon, and trafficking is only a mode of migration. Over-emphasising trafficking and taking it out of context (in relation to migration) is strategically counter-productive in the fight for human rights because: (a) trafficking puts migration in a crime control, crime prevention context, rather than talking about migrants’ human rights first, and then talking about trafficking in the context of human rights; and (b) trafficking is being used by governments as a vehicle to develop more restrictive approaches to migration in general.”

This last reference to the ‘politics of trafficking’ is important. Many governments who may otherwise be indifferent to the plight of refugees or asylum seekers bang their fists at the injustice and horror of human trafficking. All of a sudden, ‘human rights’ are found liberally sprinkled throughout campaign speeches and political rhetoric. However, such anti-trafficking and ‘human rights’ measures can be used by governments to adopt more restrictive approaches to migration in general. Stronger border controls actually render children more reliant on third parties, and therefore more vulnerable to rights violations associated with both migration and trafficking.

A Save the Children report explains that anti-trafficking measures can reduce or cancel out the positive effects of migration. For example, a study* of 1000 migrant children who had migrated from Mali to work on cocoa farms in Côte d'Ivoire found that most had chosen to migrate, and were ‘positive’ about their migration. They said it had given them "an opportunity to experience urban lifestyles, learn new languages, and accumulate possessions. For both boys and girls, the experience provided a rite of passage with cultural as well as financial importance. " Yet, the study found that anti-trafficking policies have erected barriers to "safe, assisted migration", for example, local leaders are reported to seek to arrest children who attempt to migrate. The report also points out that “few child rights agencies have, as yet, turned their attention to the many other child migrants – both accompanied and unaccompanied - who cannot be classified as “victims of trafficking”, “asylum seekers” or “refugees”, but who are nonetheless vulnerable to extensive and often serious violations of their rights.”

Moreover, talk of child trafficking has sometimes led to the reproduction of racist stereotypes. For example, Roma communities in Europe are often cited as both victims and perpetrators of child trafficking. As the Save the Children report notes: “The term “trafficking” is being used to blur all distinction between criminal activities, traditional practices and survival strategies on the part of communities that are already socially excluded.”

Most of us have heard about the appalling circumstances in which children have been abused and exploited because of trafficking. In view of this, the full depth and breadth of resources must be deployed in order to prevent such criminal activities and to mitigate against the consequences for children. But experts argue it is important to base programming, research and policy on a clear understanding of the practice, devoid of media sensationalism and political rhetoric, so that the ‘reality’ of children’s experiences are addressed. In other words, solutions must be rights-based. Many studies fail to include the views and experiences of children, and the criminalisation of victims of trafficking is still regrettably widespread. As always, children’s capacity for agency, for example in making choices on the basis of economic need, must be balanced with the need to protect their specific vulnerabilities.

Your turn! What do you think of this piece? Send us your views.

For follow-up information on this week's editorial, check our issues page.

Further information

This month's edition of UNICEF's Social and Economic Policy Update focuses on children and migration.

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LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS

Committee on the Rights of the Child – latest recommendations

The Committee on the Rights of the Child has issued its Concluding
Observations to countries reviewed during the Committee's 54th session. Download the Committee's recommendations below.

Countries examined on the CRC: Argentina | Belgium | FYR of Macedonia | Grenada | Guatemala | Japan | Nigeria | Tunisia

Countries examined on the OPSC: Argentina | Belgium | Colombia | FYR of Macedonia | Japan | Serbia

Countries examined on the OPAC: Argentina | Colombia | Japan | Serbia | FYR of Macedonia

For full details of the 54th session, visit our CRC news page.

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Iran and the death penalty: a shaft of light?

Iran has agreed to review its widely condemned policy of executing juveniles after a review of its human rights record by the UN Human Rights Council, according to a Reuters report. Mohammad Javad Larijani, secretary-general of the Iranian high council for human rights, said that Iran was open to an impartial discussion of its record, but Western ways should not be imposed on the Islamic republic. Read the full story.

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Battling violence against girls

Iraqi Kurdistan: A new report by Human Rights Watch has found that a significant number of girls and women in Iraqi Kurdistan suffer female genital mutilation (FGM) and its destructive after-effects.

"They Took Me and Told Me Nothing': Female Genital Mutilation in Iraqi Kurdistan" documents the experiences of young girls and women who undergo FGM against a backdrop of conflicting messages from some religious leaders and healthcare professionals about the practice's legitimacy and safety. The report calls for the Kurdistan Regional Government should take immediate action to end FGM and develop a long term plan for its eradication, including passing a law to ban the practice. Download the report.

India: The Indian government is contemplating a new law that would determine the minimum age of marriage as 18 for women and 21 for men. According to Girija Vyas of the National Commission of Women (NCW), the current Indian Penal Code is confusing because it stipulates different minimum ages for sexual consent and for marriage. Read the full story.

News of the proposed law follows two challenges to child marriage this week.

First, Delhi's high court prevented a 40 year old man from consummating his marriage to a 17 year old girl until she reaches the age of majority, following a petition filed by the NGO Association for Social Justice and Research. Read the judgement.

In another similar case a 15-year-old girl in Rajasthan filed a complaint against her family members for forcing her to marry an older man. Read the full story.

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Day of the African Child

Today, June 16th, marks the Day of the African Child. The theme of this year's day is "Planning and Budgeting for the Wellbeing of the Child: A Collective Responsibility".

The Day of the African Child is held in June every year to commemorate the Soweto uprisings in South Africa in 1976. More than one hundred black students were killed and more than a thousand were injured in a march to protest against the poor quality of their education and demand the right to be taught in their own language instead of Afrikaans, the language of white settlers.
Read more about this year's activities.

For more on children's rights and budgets, go here.

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Kyrgyzstan: UN experts call for restraint and dialogue

 A group of UN human rights experts has expressed alarm about tensions that have erupted into violence in the south of Kyrgyzstan. The violence between ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks has reportedly claimed the lives of more than one hundred people and left many more injured. Read the experts' full statement.

Also read CRIN's report on children's rights in Kyrgyzstan's Universal Periodic Review.

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Mini website: child rights in Russian

CRIN in Russian has arrived! See our new page on child rights in Russian here: http://www.crin.org/russian

On this page, you can find:
- resources on the full range of children's rights
- information about global campaigns
- explanations of how to use international human rights mechanisms to challenge breaches of children's rights

The page is a work in progress, so if you are a Russian native speaker and would like to volunteer to help us translate more vital information about children's rights into Russian, please contact [email protected].

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Complaints mechanism: updated advocacy toolkit

The latest Advocacy Toolkit to support those interested in joining the campaign for a communications procedure under the Convention on the Rights of the Child is now available. The toolkit, which was prepared by the NGO Group for CRC Complaints Mechanism Working Group, contains background information about the campaign, suggestions for campaigning and lobbying activities you could undertake at national level, questions and answers, a glossary and a feedback form. Download the toolkit.

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Coming up: Deadlines for UPR submissions

Want to know more about the Universal Periodic Review (UPR)? Go here.

Session 9: 1st - 12th November 2010

The human rights record of the following countries is due to be reviewed:

Liberia, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Malawi, Mauritania, Lebanon, Maldives, Marshal Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, United States of America, Andorra, Bulgaria, Croatia.

Deadline for Submissions for Sessions 10 and 11

Session 10:

Submissions on the 16 countries scheduled for review at session 10 of the Working Group on the the UPR (January 2011) should be sent to [email protected] by:

* 5 July 2010 for submissions on Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Prinicpe, Myanmar, Nauru, Nepal.

* 12 July 2010 for submissions on Oman, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Australia, Austria, Estonia and Georgia.

Session 11:

Submissions on the 16 countries scheduled for review at session 11 of the Working Group on the UPR (May 2011) should be sent to [email protected] by:

* 1 November 2010 for submissions on Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Singapore; and

* 8 November 2010 for submissions on Salomon Islands, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Hungary and Latvia.

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Employment: UNICEF - Save the Children

UNICEF: Chief of Child Protection, Bangui, Central African Republic

Under the general guidance of the Deputy Representative, you will be responsible for the development, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Child Protection programme within the CAR country programme.

For more information, register at www.unicef.org/about/employ quoting reference number E-VN-2010-001176.

Application deadline: 25 June 2010

Save the Children: Regional Child Protection Initiative Representative, West and Central Africa Region

This post is based in Dakar, Senegal.

The assignment period is one year, with a possible extension, starting in October 2010.

For more information, visit: http://www.savethechildren.se/About-Us/Job-vacancies/

Application deadline: 10 July 2010

JARGON OF THE WEEK

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