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Child Prostitution The Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children In the early years of the 21st Century gvnet.com/childprostitution/CostaRica.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 *** Innocence for Tamar Hahn, Mother Jones, Oct. 10, 2000 motherjones.com/politics/2000/10/innocence-sale [accessed 5 May 2011] Every evening at 6
p.m. she walks out into the streets of ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/costa-rica.htm [accessed 30 January 2011] INCIDENCE AND NATURE
OF CHILD LABOR
- The commercial sexual exploitation of children is a continuing problem in Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61722.htm [accessed 30 January 2011] CHILDREN - The government,
security officials, and child advocacy organizations acknowledged that the
commercial sexual exploitation of children remained serious problems. PANI
estimated that three thousand children suffered from commercial sexual
exploitation and street children in the urban areas of Human Rights
Reports » 2004 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41755.htm [accessed 27 February 2011] CHILDREN - The Government,
security officials, and child advocacy organizations acknowledged that the
commercial sexual exploitation of children remained a serious problem. In 2003, the NGO Casa Alianza
estimated that of the approximately 1,500 children living on the street, 76
percent were addicted to drugs and 29 percent survived by prostitution. Concluding Observations of the Committee on
the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 3
June 2005 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/costarica2005.html [accessed 30 January 2011] [49] The Committee
welcomes the ratification by the State Party of the Optional Protocol to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child
prostitution and child pornography, as well as the measures taken by the
State Party to prevent and combat sexual abuse and exploitation of children.
The Committee further welcomes the inclusive participation of Non-Governmental
organizations in this process and the development of a National Plan against
Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents (2001). The Committee also
welcomes the direct initiatives in cooperation with hotels and the travel
industry to combat sex tourism. However, the Committee remains concerned at
the low level of coordination among institutions, the lack of assistance
available for victims of sexual exploitation, as well as information received
by the Committee whereby the number of children victims of sexual
exploitation might be increasing, in particular among street children. Reuters, July 19, 2007 tiquicia-cr.blogspot.com/2007/07/costa-rica-toughens-sexual-exploitation.html [accessed 5 May 2011] The reformed laws
ban possession of child pornography for the first time and make sex with
children under 13 punishable by up to 16 years in prison. Police say efforts
to crack down on child prostitution has driven it underground into the
control of criminal organizations. Five Years After ECPAT: Fifth Report
on implementation of the Agenda for Action ECPAT International, November 2001 www.no-trafficking.org/content/web/05reading_rooms/five_years_after_stockholm.pdf [accessed 13 September 2011] [B] COUNTRY UPDATES
– Innocence for Tamar Hahn, Mother Jones, Oct. 10, 2000 motherjones.com/politics/2000/10/innocence-sale [accessed 5 May 2011] Every evening at 6
p.m. she walks out into the streets of Sordid Child Sex
Trade Booms in Glenn Garvin, www.libertadlatina.org/Lat_SORDID_CHILD_SEX_TRADE_BOOMS_IN_COSTA_RICA_04-29-2000.HTM [accessed 5 May 2011] Both kids dissolved
in giggles. Then the older one looks up, her face solemn. ''Thirty dollars
for my little sister, 15 for me," she says. Meet Stephanie, 12, and Ivette,
13, two members of a fast-growing Costa Rican work force: child
prostitutes. The girls say they've
been working as prostitutes for a year, since they were 11 and 12. Even then, they weren't the youngest on the
corner. That would be 9-year-old Iliana, who left
home after being repeatedly sexually molested by an uncle. Country Report - iAbolish, The American
Anti-Slavery Group At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 5 May 2011] A VICTIM’S STORY - In 1999, several
underage Costa Rican girls testified to being lured to a party by The girls abused by
Baker and Kanev are certainly not alone. Costa Rica
hosts the fastest-growing network of sexual exploitation and trafficking of
children and the largest number of child prostitutes in Central America. UNICEF Works To Eradicate Child Sexual
Exploitation The At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 5 May 2011] The studies
revealed that there are three types of factors that cause children to become
involved in sexual commercial exploitation: the environment of sexual
commerce; the family context; and their life histories, which make the
children vulnerable to mistreatment and victimization. In regards to the
environment, the presence of domestic abusers as well as foreign tourists
leads to three major types of intermediaries: bar and hotels owners, taxi
drivers, and pimps. It is important to educate people so as not to judge
girls too quickly, based on their appearance, as prostitutes. According to
Ms. Alfaro, this attitude and its side effects are important aspects in the
process. In regards to
family life, the primary factors in making children vulnerable to sexual
exploitation were poverty and family violence. Various risk factors come into
play, including: a record of previous sexual abuse, running away, staying on
the street, paternal neglect, abused mothers, and the consumption of drugs
and alcohol. According to
UNICEF-Costa Rica, child sexual commercial exploitation is considered to be a
severe violation of children and adolescents, and it is recognized as a national
problem that manifests itself through the sex trade, trafficking, and child
and adolescent pornography. Moreover, it must
be remembered that the boys, girls and adolescents engaged in prostitution
are always the victims and the fault lies with the adults who exploit
children. Child Prostitution: A Growing Scourge W. E. Gutman, The
www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_10/issue_07/travel_01.html [accessed 5 May 2011] A REGION OUT OF
CONTROL - Child
Prostitution a Growing Problem Nefer Munoz, Inter Press
Service News Agency IPS, www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/47/333.html [accessed 5 May 2011] "Because in Prostitution Is
'Dark Side of Tourism' Serge F. Kovaleski,
The www.latinamericanstudies.org/costarica/prostitution.htm [accessed 5 May 2011] David, a stocky,
unkempt man who insisted that only his first name be used, boasted of how he
had arranged for one of the many taxi drivers connected with the sex trade to
bring a 13-year-old girl from her parents' home in a poor Casa Alianza /
Covenant House, 10-13-2003 www.libertadlatina.org/Lat_Costa_Ricas_Principal_Madame_Arrested_10132003.htm [accessed 5 May 2011] Sinai Monge Munoz, 41, was arrested on Thursday evening after a
successful sting operation in the Hatillo 3 suburb
of the capital of Deaths Force www.latinamericanstudies.org/costarica/badilla.htm [accessed 5 May 2011] But finally,
because hers was the second set of teen-prostitute body parts to appear along
Protection Project - The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/costa.doc [accessed 2009] FACTORS THAT
CONTRIBUTE TO THE TRAFFICKING INFRASTRUCTURE - Sex tourism: Lessons learned in Philip Wright, Producer, Child Rescuers,
BBC News, 18 June, 2004 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/3818871.stm [accessed 5 May 2011] Ordinary Costa
Ricans, from taxi drivers to hoteliers, are taking official tourism classes
as part of the country's latest attempt to stop the abuse of children by
international sex tourists. The Central
American holiday destination is sending thousands of tourism workers, from
hotel receptionists to tour guides, on training courses to get the message
across that it is not a good idea to help tourists find under-age girls for
sex. It is part of the Code of
Conduct drawn up by the industry and children's rights campaigners. Sex Tourism
Plagues Paul Jeffrey, United Methodist Women UMW,
Response gbgm-umc.org/response/articles/sextourism.html [accessed 5 May 2011] Street children who
used to sniff relatively inexpensive glue are now turning to crack, readily
available in the region as Central American military officials, no longer
living high on the hog from Child rights advocate speaks at U.N.
meeting on contemporary slavery www.marrder.com/htw/jun99/central.htm [accessed 5 May 2011] [article on the
right] .
"If you are an enterprising foreigner in Honduras, you can set up a bar
and offer little Honduran girls for sex to the other visiting tourists. Or in
Costa Rica, if you are a tourist, you can buy sex from little girls, but
often only in the morning as they have to go to primary school in the
afternoon," he added. In his
presentation, Harris described the worrisome boom of child sex tourism in
Costa Rica and Honduras, where more and more visitors are coming each year
exclusively to have sex with minors. Attacked by a complex network that
involves Internet sites, local hotels and bars, taxi drivers, and
"professional" pimps, numerous poor girls and boys -- as young as
10 years old -- are falling victims to those sex predators, as they find in
prostitution their only means of survival. Commercial Sexual Exploitation Of Children
(CSEC) James Varney, The Times Picayune ( www.dol.gov/ILAB/media/reports/iclp/bulletin/Sept2002.htm [accessed 3 July 2011] [scroll down] "As they say
in this dingy border junction with All material
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