C S E C The Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 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 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 *** 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 Country
Monitoring Report [PDF] Sarah Haider, ECPAT
International, 2014 www.ecpat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/GlobalMonitoring-BENIN.pdf [accessed 26 August
2020] [FRENCH] Desk review of
existing information on the sexual exploitation of children (SEC) in Benin.
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/benin/ [accessed 23 August
2020] SEXUAL
EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN - The penal code provides penalties for conviction of
rape, sexual exploitation, and corruption of minors, including procuring and
facilitating prostitution; it increases penalties for cases involving
children under age 15. The child trafficking law provides penalties for
conviction of all forms of child trafficking, including child commercial
sexual exploitation, prescribing penalties if convicted of 10 to 20 years’
imprisonment. Individuals convicted of involvement in child commercial sexual
exploitation, including those who facilitate and solicit it, face
imprisonment of two to five years and fines of one million to 10 million CFA
francs ($1,698 to $16,978). The Child Code prohibits child pornography.
Persons convicted of child pornography face sentences of two to five years’
imprisonment and fines ranging from two to five million CFA francs ($3,396 to
$8,489). Violence against
children was common. According to the Center for Social Promotion of Aplahoue, from January to October 2018, there were 38
reported cases of rape, abduction, forced marriage, and trafficking of girls
in the Southwestern region of the country alone. Courts meted out stiff
sentences to persons convicted of crimes against children, but many such
cases never reached the courts due to lack of awareness of the law and
children’s rights, lack of access to courts, or fear of police involvement. 2018 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor Office of Child
Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking, Bureau of International Labor
Affairs, US Dept of Labor, 2019 www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2018/ChildLaborReportBook.pdf [accessed 22 August
2020] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor [page 196] Children are
trafficked mostly within Benin but also to other countries, primarily Gabon,
Nigeria, and the Republic of the Congo, for domestic work and commercial
sexual exploitation, and to work in vending, farming, and stone quarrying.
Children living in the northern regions of Benin are the most vulnerable to
trafficking. (1,2,11,15,18-20) Traditionally, under a practice known locally
as vidomégon, children, up to 95 percent of them
girls, live with relatives or family friends to perform household services in
exchange for educational opportunities; however, many children become victims
of labor exploitation and sexual abuse. (1,2,11,15,18,21,22) Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) [DOC] UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 20 October 2006 www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/898586b1dc7b4043c1256a450044f331/af244100fbf1ad36c125723a003fa4ab/$FILE/G0644845.doc [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 – ECPAT: CSEC
in West Africa 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. ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights Reports
» 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61554.htm [accessed 7 February
2020] 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. 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] 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 - CHILD
LABOR LAWS AND ENFORCEMENT - It is illegal to prostitute a minor in 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. 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 - |
