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Child Prostitution The Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children In the early years of the 21st Century gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Benin.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** The Protection Project - The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/benin.doc [accessed 2009] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - A tradition involving
the use of female slaves, known as trokosi or
“wives of the deity,” is a modern-day form of slavery that originated in the
Ewe and Dangme peoples in south and east Ghana, and
also in Togo and Benin. Under this tradition, young virgins are brought to a
shrine to compensate for a crime or transgression committed by their
families, perhaps even generations earlier. The girls live as slaves to the
priest. If a girl dies, the family sends a new one to replace her. The trokosi work in the household, clean the shrine, and are
used as sex slaves. ***
ARCHIVES *** ECPAT Global Monitoring Report on the
status of action against commercial exploitation of children - BENIN [PDF] ECPAT 2005 www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/AF/Global_Monitoring_Report-BENIN.pdf [accessed 6 April 2011] Hardly any
statistics or national studies on the commercial sexual exploitation of
children (CSEC) are available in A large number of
children are sexually exploited by teachers in return for better grades,
particularly in public schools. The teachers take advantage of their position
to pressure students into sexual acts, and those who refuse receive minor
grades regardless of the quality of their school work and tests. The
situation is so serious that some students have started to act as pimps to
get youngsters to provide sexual services for the teachers. The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/benin.htm [accessed 23 January 2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - CHILD
LABOR LAWS AND ENFORCEMENT - It is illegal to prostitute a minor in Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61554.htm [accessed 23 January 2011] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– Child prostitution mainly involved girls whose poor families urged them to
become prostitutes to provide income. Some children were abused sexually by
teachers who sought sex for better grades and lured to exchange sex for money
by older men who acted as their "protectors." Unlike in previous
years, there were no reports of sexual tourism or reports that adult males
preferred young girls because they were viewed as less demanding and less
likely to have HIV/AIDS. NGOs and international organizations organized
assistance to child prostitution victims and worked on prevention programs. Concluding Observations of the Committee on
the Rights of the Child (CRC) [DOC] UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,
20 October 2006 [accessed 23 January 2011] [69] The Committee
welcomes the inter-ministerial order penalizing sexual violence in schools,
but it expresses its concern at reports of sexual abuse and exploitation of
children and regrets the lack of information in the State party report on the
scope of the problem and measures taken to combat these practices. While welcoming the adoption of the Code on
Persons and the Family which sets the legal age for marriage for boys and
girls at 18, the Committee regrets the lack of clarity on the legal minimum
age of sexual consent as there is no provision to this effect in the State
party’s domestic legislation. Concluding Observations of the Committee on
the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 4
June 1999 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/benin1999.html [accessed 23 January 2011] [32] The absence of
adequate information, including disaggregated statistical data, on the
situation of sexual exploitation of children is a matter of concern for the
Committee. In the light of article 34 and other related articles of the
Convention, the Committee recommends that the State party undertake studies
with a view to designing and implementing appropriate policies and measures,
including care and rehabilitation, to prevent and combat the sexual
exploitation of children. It also recommends that the State party reinforce
its legislative framework to fully protect children from all forms of sexual
abuse or exploitation, including within the family. It is also recommended
that the State party consider the ratification of the Convention for the
Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the
Prostitution of Others of 1949. Five Years After ECPAT: Fifth Report
on implementation of the Agenda for Action [DOC] ECPAT International, November 2001 www.no-trafficking.org/content/web/05reading_rooms/five_years_after_stockholm.pdf [accessed 13 September 2011] [B]
COUNTRY UPDATES – The Protection Project - The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/benin.doc [accessed 2009] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - A tradition
involving the use of female slaves, known as trokosi
or “wives of the deity,” is a modern-day form of slavery that originated in
the Ewe and Dangme peoples in south and east Ghana,
and also in Togo and Benin. Under this tradition, young virgins are brought
to a shrine to compensate for a crime or transgression committed by their
families, perhaps even generations earlier. The girls live as slaves to the
priest. If a girl dies, the family sends a new one to replace her. The trokosi work in the household, clean the shrine, and are
used as sex slaves. ECPAT: CSEC in ECPAT International Newsletters, Issue No :
34, 1/March/2001 At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 13 September 2011] SEX
TOURISM
- Child sex tourism has also been reported in OBSTACLES - There is a
paucity of information on the issue. This is primarily the result of taboos
and stigma attached to CSEC, the underground nature of the phenomenon and the
lack of concrete research on the issue. For example, child abuse and sexual
exploitation of children appear to be realities in ECPAT: Trafficking in Children for Sexual
Purposes ECPAT International Newsletters, Issue No :
33 1/December/2000 At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 13 September 2011] WEST
AFRICA
- There
have also been reports on the trafficking of children for sexual purposes
from Millennium Development Goals in OneWorld Guides At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 13 September 2011] HUMAN
RIGHTS
- The major human rights issues noted for UNICEF Briefing
on Trafficking in Children to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF Press
Centre, 6 June 2002 www.unicef.org/media/media_9440.html [accessed 6 April 2011] SOUTH
ASIA -
Benin's first village committees were created in August 1999 in the sub-prefectures
of Ze, Dogbo and Agbangnizoun in the south of the country - the area most
affected by child trafficking There are now more than 170 committees carrying
out a range of activities, most of which are believed to have an impact on
trafficking. These Committees raise community awareness, report cases of
sexual or other abuse of children by assigning a Committee who keeps a close
count on the number of children in the village. In addition, the Committee
contacts the police immediately when a child is discovered to be missing, and
monitors the re-integration of children who return to their villages. 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
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Child Prostitution - |
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