C S E C The Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/childprostitution/Bangladesh.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspects of child prostitution are of particular
interest to you. You might be
interested in exploring how children got started, how they survive, and how
some succeed in leaving. Perhaps your
paper could focus on runaways and the abuse that led to their leaving. Other factors of interest might be poverty,
rejection, drug dependence, coercion, violence, addiction, hunger, neglect,
etc. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the manipulative and dangerous adults who control this
activity. There is a lot to the
subject of Child Prostitution. Scan
other countries as well as this one.
Draw comparisons between activity in adjacent countries and/or
regions. Meanwhile, check out some of
the Term-Paper
resources that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Inside the slave
trade Johann Hari, The
Independent, 15 March 2008 www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/inside-the-slave-trade-795307.html [accessed 21 January
2011] They are promised a
better life. But every year, countless boys and girls in Bangladesh are
spirited away to brothels where they have to prostitute themselves with no
hope of freedom. This is the story of
the 21st century’s trade in slave-children. My journey into their underworld
took place where its alleys and brothels are most dense - Asia, where the
United Nations calculates 1 million children are being traded every day. It
took me to places I did not think existed, today, now. To a dungeon in the
lawless Bangladeshi borderlands where children are padlocked and
prison-barred in transit to Indian brothels; to an iron whore-house where
grown women have spent their entire lives being raped; to a clinic that treat
syphilitic 11-year-olds. She comes into the
room swaddled in a red sari, carrying big premature black bags under her
eyes. She tells her story in a slow, halting mumble. Sufia
grew up in a village near Khulna in the south-west of Bangladesh. Her parents
were farmers; she was one of eight children. “My parents couldn’t afford to
look after me,” she says. “We didn’t have enough money for food.” And so came the
lie. When Sufia was 14, a female neighbour came to her parents and said she could find her
a good job in Calcutta as a housemaid. She would live well; she would learn
English; she would have a well-fed future. “I was so excited,” Sufia says. “But
as soon as we arrived in Calcutta I knew something was wrong,” she says. “I
didn’t know what a brothel was, but I could see the house she took me to was a bad house, where the women wore small clothes and
lots of bad men were coming in and out.” The neighbour
was handed 50,000 takka – around £500 – for Sufia, and then she told her to do what she was told and
disappeared. -
htcp ***
ARCHIVES *** ECPAT Country
Monitoring Report [PDF] ECPAT International,
2011 www.ecpat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/EXSUM_A4A_SA_BANGLADESH.pdf [accessed 26 August
2020] Desk review of
existing information on the sexual exploitation of children (SEC) in
Bangladesh. The report looks at protection mechanisms, responses, preventive
measures, child and youth participation in fighting SEC, and makes
recommendations for action against SEC. Human
Rights Reports » 2019 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, March 10, 2020 www.state.gov/reports/2019-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/bangladesh/ [accessed 23 August
2020] SEXUAL
EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN - The penalty for sexual exploitation of children is 10
years’ to life imprisonment. Child pornography and the selling or
distributing of such material is prohibited. In June the NGO Terre des
Hommes-Netherlands released a report stating street children were the most
vulnerable to sexual exploitation but had little legal redress due to a lack
of social and financial support and a lengthy criminal justice system. The
report said although the government took “necessary legal and institutional
measures to combat commercial sexual exploitation, children face multiple
challenges in accessing justice.” The report found 75 percent of female
children living on Dhaka streets were at risk of sexual exploitation.
Underage girls working in brothels were able to produce notarized
certificates stating they were older than age 18, and some NGOs claimed that
corrupt government and law enforcement officials condoned or facilitated
these practices. In May human traffickers brought 23 teenage Rohingya girls from refugee camps to Dhaka (ref. 2.f.).
Police speculated the girls were potential victims of forced prostitution. 2018 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor Office of Child
Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking, Bureau of International Labor
Affairs, US Dept of Labor, 2019 www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2018/ChildLaborReportBook.pdf [accessed 22 August
2020] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor [page 176] Nearly 350,000 Rohingya children are living in refugee camps in Bangladesh
following the Burmese military’s ethnic cleansing operations in 2017.
Children residing in the camps are vulnerable to commercial sexual
exploitation and forced labor. (50,53,54) Rohingya girls are trafficked from the refugee camps for
commercial sexual exploitation in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. In some
cases, girls are promised jobs in domestic service but are instead forced
into commercial sexual exploitation. (44,47) Prostitution and
forced labour: trafficking in human beings in
Bangladesh Sumon Corraya,
Asia News, Dhaka, 26 February 2015 [accessed 26
February 2015] In Bangladesh,
human trafficking feeds humans to the sex trade and forced labour market. According to the Centre for Women and Child
Studies, boys who fall into them tend to be under ten; girls tend to be
between 11 and 16. However, it is not uncommon for children under eight years
of age to become sex slaves, segregated in brothels or bawdyhouses. Adult and teenaged
Bangladeshis end up in the sex trade or forced into slave-like conditions
like begging. In some cases, extremely poor parents sell their children. In
other cases, traffickers trick them or force them into giving up their
children. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 30 September 2003 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/bangladesh2003.html [accessed 21 January
2011] [71] While welcoming
the National Plan of Action against sexual abuse and exploitation, the
Committee is deeply concerned at the prevalence of sexual exploitation of
children and the social stigmatization of the victims of such exploitation,
as well as at the lack of social and psychological recovery programs and the
very limited possibilities for victims to be reintegrated into society. The Committee is also concerned about the
widespread practice of forcing children into prostitution. NGOs Work To
Eradicate Human Trafficking, Help Victims presszoom.com/story_134115.html [accessed 4 April
2011] U.S.-funded nongovernmental
organizations around the world are working to prevent human trafficking,
provide resources to victims and arrest and prosecute child-sex offenders.
From Africa to Europe to Asia, initiatives are raising worldwide awareness of
the illegal practice of human trafficking. PREVENTING HUMAN
TRAFFICKING
- The NGO INCIDIN, a prominent advocate of children’s rights in Bangladesh,
works to prevent underage male prostitution in the country. INCIDIN has
worked to shed light on this phenomenon and to remove the stigma of
discussing it. INCIDIN opened a night shelter for street children in Dhaka
and worked with the government of Bangladesh to expand the program to other
parts of the country. Child
Rape and Coercion of Girls into Sex Work
[DOC] Prepared for the
Committee on the Rights of the Child by Human Rights Watch www.crin.org/docs/resources/treaties/crc.34/bangladesh_HRW_ngo_report.doc [accessed 4 April
2011] Child Labor or
Child Prostitution? Thomas DeGregori, cato.org, October 8, 2002 www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3621 [accessed 4 April
2011] Yet proposed acr.hrschool.org/mainfile.php/0103/20/ [accessed 4 April
2011] Boys tend to become
pimps once they grow up and girls continue in their mothers’ profession. Most
girls enter the profession before the age of 12. Societal indifference and apathy towards
children of sex workers is one of the primary reasons for growing numbers of
child sex workers. Street Children
Suffer Sexual Abuse Qurratul Ain Tahmina, Inter Press Service News Agency IPS, www.aegis.com/news/ips/2001/IP011104.html [accessed 4 April
2011] These men can
easily lure the children with food, money and kind words and eventually abuse
them sexually. This happens to boys and girls equally," he says. Homosexual practices, too, are very high
among the boys. When
Police act as Pimps - Glimpses into Child Prostitution in India Manushi, Issue 105 --
Edited extracts from an investigation conducted by Roma Debabrata
for the National Commission for Women in 1997 www.indiatogether.org/manushi/issue105/childpro.htm [accessed 4 April
2011] A
TYPICAL RECRUITING GROUND - Women dalaals, mostly
original inhabitants of Amir Murtaza, Editor, Lawyers for Human Rights & Legal Aid
LHRLA At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 13
September 2011] The workshop
divulged that commercial sexual exploitation of children was a significant
problem in Child Prostitution
on the rise in Bangla Asian Age Newspaper,
3rd February 1999 www.burmalibrary.org/reg.burma/archives/199902/msg00019.html [accessed 4 April
2011] Activists here warn
that child prostitution among boys as well as girls is on the rise with at
least 62,000 Bangladeshis employed in the sex trade in the Indian sub-continent. ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** 2017 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 20 April 2018 www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2017/sca/277277.htm
[accessed 16 March
2019] www.state.gov/reports/2017-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/bangladesh/ [accessed 16 March
2019] PROHIBITION OF
FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR
- The
law prohibits all forms of forced or compulsory labor. Penalties for forced
or bonded labor offenses are five to 12 years’ imprisonment and a fine of not
less than 50,000 taka ($625). Inspection mechanisms that enforce laws against
forced labor did not function effectively. Resources, inspections, and
remediation efforts were inadequate. The law also provides that victims of
forced labor have access to shelter and other protective services afforded to
trafficking victims. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61705.htm [accessed 6 February 2020] WOMEN
– Prostitution
is legal and remained a problem during the year. The minimum age of 18 for
legal prostitution was commonly ignored by authorities and circumvented by
false statements of age. Procurers of minors were rarely prosecuted, and
large numbers of child prostitutes worked in brothels. The UN Children's Fund
estimated in 2004 that there were 10 thousand child prostitutes working in
the country, but other estimates placed the figure as high as 29 thousand. CHILDREN - Child labor
remained a problem and frequently resulted in the abuse of children, mainly
through mistreatment by employers during domestic service and occasionally
included servitude and prostitution. The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/bangladesh.htm [accessed 21 January
2011] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL Worst Forms of Child Labor INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - In urban areas many children work as domestic
servants, porters, and street vendors, and are vulnerable to sexual abuse and
commercial sexual exploitation. The
legal definitions of prostitution and trafficking do not account for males,
so the government provides few services for boy victims of child prostitution. ECPAT Global
Monitoring Report on the status of action against commercial exploitation of
children - BANGLADESH [PDF] ECPAT 2005 www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/South_Asia/Global_Monitoring_Report-BANGLADESH.pdf [accessed 3 April
2011] There are indications
that in recent years the incidence of the commercial sexual exploitation of
children in the country has changed. In addition to child marriage and
traditional/customary laws that contribute to the commercial sexual
exploitation of children, more incidences of child trafficking for sexual
purposes, child prostitution, and child pornography are evident. It appears
that the majority of Bangladeshi children forced into prostitution are based
in brothels, with a smaller number of children exploited in hotel rooms,
parks, railway and bus stations and rented flats. More than 20,000 children
live in the 18 registered red light districts in Bangladesh and many are
forced into or are expected to enter the same situation as that of their
mothers. In these contexts, younger children, for example, help their mothers
with household chores and provide refreshments for their mother’s clients.
Boys often become pimps when they get older and many girls enter prostitution
before the age of 12. A report published
by Appropriate Resources for Improving Street Children’s Environment (Arise)
in 2002, put the number of street children in Bangladesh at approximately two
million and indicated that sexual exploitation of children is rampant. Little
has changed to reduce these numbers and homeless children living on the
streets continue to be particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation as
their strategies for survival, usually as rag pickers, beggars or peddlers,
renders them vulnerable to all forms of exploitation and abuse. In the
precarious and dangerous conditions in which they exist, they are sometimes
forced into offering sexual favors to meet basic needs such as food, shelter
and clothing. A 2005 research study conducted by the NGO Aparajeyo-Bangladesh
(AB), cited several forms of sexual exploitation on the streets: it reported
that children are coerced into massaging adultsand
are forced to engage in sexual activities in market places, parks, railway
stations, and boat and bus terminals. Some pimps use city hotels or rented
private flats in certain parts of the city for sexual exploitation. Men
involved in small businesses such as operators/vendors (36%), beggars and day
labourers (17.2%), as well as the police and
security guards (9.6%), were among the largest groups of sexual exploiters of
street children. Others include relatives, transport workers, employers, and
strangers. The study noted that among the key contributing factors that drove
children into situations of exploitation were poverty, hunger, the need to
earn money, sexual abuse by employers, family members or other men and the
threat and force by pimps and others in their environment. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
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