Human Trafficking in [Gambia] [other countries]Street Children in [Gambia] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Gambia |
Child Prostitution The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of
Children In
the early years of the 21st Century
- 2000 to 2010 gvnet.com/childprostitution/Gambia.htm
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CAUTION: The following links and accompanying text have been culled
from the web to illuminate the situation in The Gambia. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated, misleading or even
false. No attempt has been made to
validate their authenticity or to verify their content. ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** UN Integrated Regional Information Networks IRIN, Dakar, 6
May 2004 www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=49784 [accessed 16 May 2011] The sexual abuse of children in
the “There is a certain tolerance in wider society that this is going on,” Faye told IRIN. She said one of the strongest indications that a traditional taboo on such behaviour is being lifted is the new aggressive pursuit of Sugar Daddies by the children themselves. Globalization Of Sex Trade [DOC] Tammy Quintanilla, CLADEM (Comité
de Latinoamérica y el Caribe
para la Defensa de los Derechos de la Mujer), 1997 old.socialwatch.org/en/informesTematicos/40.html [accessed 19 September 2011] SEXUAL
REGIONALIZATION - In ***
ARCHIVES *** ECPAT Global Monitoring Report on the status of action
against commercial exploitation of children - GAMBIA [PDF] Renata Cocarro
& Manida Naebklang, ECPAT
International, 2007 www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/AF/Global_Monitoring_Report-GAMBIA.pdf [accessed 16 May 2011] The While girls are the primary target
of commercial sexual exploitation, boys have been increasingly victimised in the last few years, especially in the
tourism sector. In research conducted
by the Child Protection Alliance (CPA) – the ECPAT group in the country – and
Terre des Hommes, interviews with boys involved in
prostitution confirmed that the perpetrators are usually foreigners, some of
whom travel to The Gambia on package tour holidays for the specific purpose
of having sexual relationships with young Gambian men. The research also
indicated that a number of ‘bumsters’ - young
people who follow tourists and offer to be a guide or a friend - are engaged
in commercial sex or act as pimps. Anecdotal evidence and observation of
certain locations around the beach and tourism development areas suggests
that some of these ‘bumsters’ are below the age of
18. It is important to note that a certain percentage of sex tourists in The
Gambia are female, and as such, it is possible that underage boys are also
being sexually exploited by women. The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on the Worst Forms
of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/gambia.htm [accessed 6 February 2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - According to UNICEF, commercial sexual exploitation of children is
on the rise. The problem is most acute in the sex tourism industry,
where young children, especially girls, are coerced by Gambian adults
offering gifts and promises of a better or “more Western” life style. Child trafficking is also a problem. As a
transit and destination country, the Human Rights Reports » 2005
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61571.htm [accessed 6 February 2011] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – In
January 2004 a joint UN Children's Fund (UNICEF)-government study reported
that children engaged in prostitution in the main tourist resort areas were
predominantly underage, some as young as 12. The report stated that the
country has become an attraction for suspected or convicted European
pedophiles that entered the country as tourists and committed their crimes
against children with impunity. Victims of trafficking were children of both
sexes, normally younger than 16 to 18 years old, and included both citizens
and immigrants or refugees from Some child prostitution victims
stated they worked to support their families, or because they were orphans
and their guardian/procurer supported them. The guardian/procurer often
assumed the role of the "African uncle," allowing the children to
live in his compound with their younger siblings or paying school fees on
their behalf in return for their servitude Concluding Observations of the
Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 12 October 2001 sim.law.uu.nl/SIM/CaseLaw/uncom.nsf/0/591a51d686b9a0dcc1256aed0044ea6a?OpenDocument [accessed 6 February 2011] [64] The Committee is concerned
about the large and increasing number of child victims of commercial sexual
exploitation, including for prostitution and pornography, especially among
child laborers and street children. Concern is also expressed at the
insufficient programs for the physical and psychological recovery and social
reintegration of child victims of such abuse and exploitation. Koranic schools in Reuters, lesogres.org/forum.php3?id_article=2191&id_forum=45622&retour=article.php3%3Fid_article%3D2191 [accessed 16 May 2011] Until recently most countries in 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 – THE GAMBIA– CSEC and especially sex tourism is a problem in the Report by Special Rapporteur [DOC] UN Economic and Social Council Commission on Human Rights,
Fifty-ninth session, 6 January 2003 www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/0/217511d4440fc9d6c1256cda003c3a00/$FILE/G0310090.doc [accessed 16 May 2011] [42] The age of criminal liability
is 7. A child under 12 may be criminally liable for involvement in
prostitution or pornography if it can be proven that he or she had knowledge
to understand the act of commission or omission. Research on
sexual exploitation of children is under way and preparations are being made
to harmonize domestic laws with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to
enact a Children’s Code and to establish a National Commission on
Children. The necessary laws will be in place in
2003. Childcare units have been established at the Departments of
Social Welfare and the Police, and a Child Protection Alliance, which
includes government departments, United Nations agencies, local and
international NGOs and other organizations, has developed a National Plan of
Action on Child Protection. A Child Rights Unit has been established at the
Attorney-General’s Chambers. Child Sex Tourism And
Exploitation Increasing In The United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF, www.unicef.org/media/media_20825.html [accessed 16 May 2011] It reveals the strong existence of
a false “glamorization” of prostitution, particularly in sex tourism. “Many
children engaged in prostitution spoke of their envy of girls involved in
prostitution – their clothes, style and hanging out at nightclubs.” For many,
according to the report, being a sex worker “means having access to a lot of
cash to buy jeans, shoes, to go to beauty salons for hair and nail care to
show off at beach parties and nightclubs.” Although sex tourism is the more
sensational face of the sexual exploitation of children in The Gambia, “sugar
daddies” perhaps represent its more pervasive face. This involves sexual abuse
and exploitation of young girls by adult Gambian men in exchange for money
and gifts, and includes, according to the report, family members, teachers
and other trusted adults. UN Integrated Regional Information Networks IRIN, www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=49784 [accessed 16 May 2011] The sexual abuse of children in
the Gambia is increasing as a result of rising poverty in the small West
African country and Gambian men rather than European tourists are mainly
responsible for the phenomenon, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
said in new report published this week.
Gambia has long been linked with sex tourism, but the UNICEF study,
published on Wednesday, found that the main abusers of local children were
male Gambian "Sugar Daddies." “There is a certain tolerance in
wider society that this is going on,” Faye told IRIN. She said one of the
strongest indications that a traditional taboo on such behaviour
is being lifted is the new aggressive pursuit of Sugar Daddies by the
children themselves. Community attitudes towards sexual exploitation of children Olymatou Cox, The Gambia, The African
Social Science Journalist [Published by students in the AVU-IUP Certificate
in Journalism Program: Research Methods in Journalism and Public Opinion
Polling] www.chss.iup.edu/certj/CoxCH.htm [accessed 16 May 2011] In some instance, adults did say
that children must play a role in their own protection-primary by listening
to and following the advice of their parents and other elders. As some of the
children’s groups observed, many adults agreed that parents can only do so
much to protect their children. Even if their needs are taken care of, they
can still engage in behaviour that is detrimental
to their well being, such as sexual relations with sugar daddies. Most
children engaged in prostitution did in fact say that their parents had no
idea of what they did for a living and they could easily hide their income
from them. Thus, the prevailing idea that parents collude with and support
their children’s exploitation could be a partial exaggeration, perhaps a
convenient form of denial that one’s own children could become a victim.
Adult prostitutes generally blamed themselves and the men who exploited them
for their predicament. The idea that, as children, parents and authorities
should have protected them seemed native to most of them and a denial of
their own agency and ability to make a rational decision. Europeans Involved In Gambian
Child Sex Tourism afrol News (African News Agency), 11
February 2003 www.afrol.com/html/News2003/gam001_sex_tourism.htm [accessed 16 May 2011] One of the typical ways of
contacting the children is establishing a relation to a poor family by
"offering financial help for buying food and then offering school
sponsorship to children. The The Protection Project - The The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/gambia.doc [accessed 2009] FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE
TRAFFICKING INFRASTRUCTURE - An increase in government legal responses in countries such as Thailand
has redirected the flow of European pedophiles to places such as The
Gambia. A quarter of the Gambian
population lives on tourism, and this fact, combined with the fact that
Gambia is a cheap destination, has drawn pedophiles and other sex tourists. FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - The Department of Social Welfare
launched a UNICEF-funded study on sexual abuse and exploitation of children
in The Gambia in May 2004. The report concluded that Gambian children face
exploitation in the form of sex tourism as well as child pornography and
trafficking associated with the tourism industry and that most children
involved in prostitution are encouraged to do so by their parents in order to
supplement family income. Moreover, it
is common for girls as young as 13 or 14 years of age to get married; in
addition, young girls will engage in sexual relations with older men in
exchange for gifts, a practice known as the “Sugar Daddy Syndrome.” Another common traditional practice, known
as the “Almudu Syndrome,” involves sending
children, usually teenagers, to study Islam and the Qur’an
with a knowledgeable adult. In return for their education, the children work
for their teachers; however, in some cases children do not receive their
promised education and are exploited by their teachers, even becoming sex
slaves. Gambian Child-Sex Tourism Case
Rolled Up afrol News (African News Agency), 28
April 2004 [accessed 16 May 2011] A Norwegian teacher has been
charged with sexual abuse of a 12-year-old boy in The Gambia. The case is rolled up by Norwegian police
in Scot accused of child rape in John Ross, The Scotsman, thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Scot-accused-of-child-rape.2547530.jp [accessed 16 May 2011] A Scot due today to face charges
of raping a ten-year-old girl in European paedophiles flock to
Gambian ' Alex Duval Smith in www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jul/04/childprotection.uk [accessed 16 May 2011] So the youth of the Globalization Of Sex Trade [DOC] Tammy Quintanilla, CLADEM (Comité
de Latinoamérica y el Caribe
para la Defensa de los Derechos de la Mujer), 1997 old.socialwatch.org/en/informesTematicos/40.html [accessed 19 September 2011] SEXUAL
REGIONALIZATION - In 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 –
The Gambia", http://gvnet.com/childprostitution/Gambia.htm, [accessed
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Human Trafficking in [Gambia] [other countries]Street Children in [Gambia] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Gambia