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The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children

In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to 2025                              gvnet.com/childprostitution/Lithuania.htm

Republic of Lithuania

Lithuania's economy grew on average 8% per year for the four years prior to 2008, driven by exports and domestic consumer demand. Unemployment stood at 4.8% in 2008, while wages grew at double digit rates. The current account deficit rose to roughly 15% of GDP in 2007-08. Lithuania has gained membership in the World Trade Organization and joined the EU in May 2004. Despite Lithuania's EU accession, Lithuania's trade with its Central and Eastern European neighbors, and Russia in particular, accounts for a growing percentage of total trade. Privatization of the large, state-owned utilities is nearly complete. Foreign government and business support have helped in the transition from the old command economy to a market economy.  [The World Factbook, U.S.C.I.A. 2009]

Description: Lithuania

CAUTION:  The following links and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Lithuania.  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.

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.

HELP for Victims

Missing Persons Families Support Center
5 248 3373
Country code: 370-

 

*** FEATURED ARTICLE ***

The Incidence of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the Baltic Sea Region

From a study by ECPAT International on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children CSEC in some Eastern European Countries

www.sasian.org/legal/baltic/baltic2.htm

[accessed 14 June 2011]

[scroll down to Lithuania]

Although statistical data on the issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children are lacking in every country in the Baltic Sea Region, several social workers have confirmed that there is child prostitution at the railway station in Vilnius. Child prostitution also exists at the airport and at some hotels. The youngest girls are said to be only 11 or 12 years of age.

 

*** ARCHIVES ***

ECPAT Regional Overview: The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Europe [PDF]

ECPAT International, 2014

www.ecpat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Regional%20CSEC%20Overview_Europe.pdf

[accessed 2 September 2020]

Maps sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism (SECTT), online child sexual exploitation (OCSE), trafficking of children for sexual purposes, sexual exploitation of children through prostitution, and child early and forced marriage (CEFM). Other topics include migration, child labour, racism and dicsminitation, welfare systems, gender inequality.

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/lithuania/

[accessed 2 September 2020]

SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN - Individuals involving a child in pornographic events or using a child in the production of pornographic material are subject to imprisonment for up to five years (see also section 2.a., Freedom of Expression, Including for the Press). Persons who offer to purchase, acquire, sell, transport, or hold a child in captivity are subject to imprisonment for three to 12 years. The Office of the Ombudsman for Children’s Rights reported receiving no complaints of alleged sexual exploitation of children during the year. According to the Ministry of the Interior, during the first eight months of the year, officials opened three criminal cases involving child pornography. The age of consent is 16.

The Department of Labor’s 2003 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor

U.S. Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 2004

www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2003/lithuania.htm

[accessed 18 February 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 - There are reports of children as young as 11 years old working as prostitutes in brothels in Lithuania. According to UNICEF estimates, 20 to 50 percent of prostitutes in Lithuania could be minors. Organized crime figures are reported to use coercive means to traffic Lithuanian girls into prostitution abroad, particularly to Western European countries.

Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 26 January 2001

www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/lithuania2001.html

[accessed 18 February 2011]

[53] The Committee, while noting the National Program against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse of Children of 2000, expresses its deep concern at the lack of data, consistent policies, rehabilitation and reintegration programs, and the reports of disappearances of minors, in particular girls, allegedly for trafficking purposes. Further, it notes that procuring for the purpose of prostitution is punished only in cases involving girls and that some legal provisions result in the administrative punishment of children involved in commercial sexual exploitation.

Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) Concluding Observations

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 29th meeting, 14-05-2004

sim.law.uu.nl/SIM/CaseLaw/uncom.nsf/0/dc6f7a5b9f384505c1256e98004990ac?OpenDocument

[accessed 14 June 2011]

[19] The Committee notes with concern that trafficking in women and children continues to be a problem in the State party, which is a country of origin and transit, in spite of the existence of the "Program on control and prevention of prostitution and commercial trade in people for 2002-2004" and that the new Criminal Code provides for criminal liability for a number of trafficking-related crimes, including trade in people (art. 147), profiting from another person's prostitution (art. 307), and procuring to prostitution (art. 308). Moreover, the Committee regrets that the lack of information on the number of people trafficked does not give an accurate picture of the extent of the problem.

Press declaration at the World Social Forum 2004 in Mumbai

International Falcon Movement - Socialist Educational International

At one time this article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]

[accessed 14 June 2011]

In Lithuania, 20 to 50 percent of prostitutes are believed to be minors. Children as young as age 11 are known to work as prostitutes. Children from children’s homes, some 10 to 12 years old, have been used to make pornographic movies.

Five Years After Stockholm [PDF]

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 – LITHUANIA – Only a very small number of NGOs in Lithuania work on CSEC. One of the most active is the Support Centre for Families of Missing People, which seeks to locate missing persons. It is involved in prevention work and the repatriation of trafficking victims. It distributes information on the risks of trafficking through videos, posters and leaflets to vulnerable young girls. The leaflets also provide information on where and how they can get help if they are trafficked.

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 14 June 2011]

[53] The sale and trafficking, and the use of children in prostitution and pornography are criminal offences under the Criminal Code. A new Criminal Code also penalizing these offences will enter into force on 1 May 2003.  In the first nine months of 2002, two criminal offences involving the trafficking of children were registered, five criminal cases involving children in prostitution and one criminal case of using a child for the purpose of developing and distributing pornography were registered.  Children do not incur any criminal liability as a result of their involvement; however, earning one’s living from prostitution is an administrative offence and liability is incurred by children over 16. During the first nine months of 2002, 18 such cases were reported.  A National Program against Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse of Children was approved by the Government in 2000, which provides for in-service training of police officers and preparation of methodological materials concerning the interviewing of sexually abused children.

Crossing Borders: The Trafficking of Children into the UK [PDF]

ECPAT UK, Childright 218, July/August 2005: 7-9

www.docstoc.com/docs/38950516/The-global-phenomenon-of-trafficking-in-persons---the-illegal-and

[accessed 13 Aug  2013]

The story of Elena, a 15-year-old East European girl lured to the UK, is a graphic example of the millions of children caught up in the abusive and exploitative world of trafficking. Lured from her native Lithuania by prospects of a better life, but deceived about the true nature of her work, Elena ended up being sold seven times in three months, physically and sexually abused by her 'owners' and forced into prostitution. Unlike most others, she managed to escape. Today three of the men who abused her are serving sentences of seven to 18 years. Elena, however, remains deeply traumatised and devastated by her experience.

I've run out of tears, says girl sold around Britain as a sex slave at the age of 15

Nigel Bunyan, Telegraph, 11/05/2005

At one time this article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]

[accessed 14 June 2011]

That night she had been due to be passed on to her eighth owner in three months. Eventually, it is thought, she was likely to have been sold on to traffickers in Germany.  Elena's nightmare began with a call to a friend's mobile phone in her hometown of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. The two girls had been sitting chatting when the phone rang. A girl offered them work in Britain. It would be fun, she said, and well paid.

Fact Sheet: Commercial Sexual Exploitation [PDF]

United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF, 22 July 2004

At one time this article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]

[accessed 14 June 2011]

FACTS AND FIGURES - An estimated 2 million children, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multi-billion dollar commercial sex industry. In Lithuania, 20% to 50% of those in prostitution are believed to be minors. Children as young as 11 can be found in brothels and children between 10 and 12 years of age have been used to make pornographic films.

Sex Trafficking Gang Sent To Jail

BBC News, 1 December 2005

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4487712.stm

[accessed 14 June 2011]

The BBC learned the girl was ringing her parents from London, and police found her when they raided a brothel in Hounslow, where she was being forced to work as a prostitute.

The National programme against the commercial Sexual Exploitation and sexual abuse of Children

Approved by Resolution no. 29 of 11 January 2000 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania

www.nplc.lt/sena/nj/English/Documents/Child%20sex.htm

[accessed 8 July 2013]

 [12] The commercial sexual exploitation of children is connected with organized crime; in this instance we are talking about drawing children into prostitution and pornographic business.  International collaboration by police officers really helps to stop such criminal activity.  Since 1991, Lithuania is a full member of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).  The Lithuanian National Bureau of Interpol, in which an officer responsible for the investigation of problems of abuse against children has been appointed since 1998, represents the Republic of Lithuania in this organization.

Situation in Lithuania [DOC]

Rūta Pabedinskienė, Chief Specialist, Family and Children Division of the Ministry of Social Security and Labour

www.childcentre.info/news/lithuania/situation_in_lithuania.doc

[accessed 14 June 2011]

The strategic goal of the Programs is to establish a prevention system for children experiencing sexual assault and commercial sexual abuse. The Program provides for training, legal, social, medical, organizational and informational means aimed at achieving its strategic goal and to provide officials with appropriate environment and methods in order to combat commercial sexploitation and sexual abuse of children.

Call for residency for human trafficking victims

Norwegian Church Aid NCA, 10 November 2004

At one time this article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]

[accessed 14 June 2011]

Eight men are to appear this week in Oslo City Court on charges of human trafficking. This is the first time a case concerning prostitution-related human trafficking is to be tried by Norway’s justice system. Two girls from Lithuania claim to have been brought against their will to Norway in autumn 2001 and forced to work as prostitutes.

 

*** EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE ***

 

Human Rights Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 8, 2006

2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61660.htm

[accessed 9 February 2020]

CHILDREN – The children's rights ombudsman reported one case of child prostitution, a girl discovered working as a prostitute who was then placed in an orphanage under special care.

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