C S E C The Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/childprostitution/Zambia.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in Zambia. 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 International Organization for
Migration ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** HIV/AIDS and Child
Labor In Zambia: A Rapid Assessment on the case of the Lusaka, Copperbelt and
Eastern Provinces International Labour
Organization (ILO) / International Labour Organization (ILO) , 2003 www.eldis.org/assets/Docs/13864.html [accessed 19
September 2011] [accessed 17
November 2016] PREVALENCE OF
COMMERCIAL SEXUAL EXPLOITATION (CSE) among children aged 14 to 16 years was
common. Half of the 34 in-depth interviews were conducted with CSE victims.
Girls claimed they slept with as many as 4 men per night and their earnings
ranged between US$0.63 and US$2.10 per act. Condoms were rarely used. Boys
clients tended to be rich widows who paid in dollars Zambia's Street-Child
Crisis Compere: Tony Jones
& Reporter: Sally Sara, Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC LATELINE,
20/11/2002 www.abc.net.au/lateline/stories/s731441.htm [accessed 17 August
2011] In southern Africa food
shortages and the AIDS crisis have triggered another terrible side effect:
child prostitution. In Zambia, AID workers say tens of thousands of
children are living on the streets. Humanitarian groups say many children are
becoming sex workers as a means of survival. Thomas and his
companion, 14-year-old Margaret, have survived the violence. Like many
children on the streets, they work together. The boys provide protection
while the girls sell sex to make enough money for food. ***
ARCHIVES *** ECPAT Country
Monitoring Report [PDF] Rebecca Rittenhouse,
ECPAT International, 2014 www.ecpat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/A4A_AF_ZAMBIA_FINAL.pdf [accessed 10 September
2020] Desk review of
existing information on the sexual exploitation of children (SEC) in Zambia.
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/zambia/ [accessed 10
September 2020] SEXUAL
EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN - The minimum age for consensual sexual relations is
16. The law provides penalties of up to life imprisonment for conviction of
statutory rape or defilement, which the law defines as the unlawful carnal
knowledge of a child younger than age 16. The minimum penalty for a conviction
of defilement is 15 years’ imprisonment. The law
criminalizes child prostitution and child pornography and provides for
penalties of up to life imprisonment for convicted perpetrators. The law
provides for prosecution and referral to counseling or community service of
child prostitutes age 12 years and older, but authorities did not enforce the
law, and child prostitution was common. According to UNICEF, transactional
sexual exploitation of young girls–that is, sex in exchange for food,
clothes, or money among extremely vulnerable girls–was prevalent. 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 10
September 2020] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor [page 1231] The Employment of Young
Persons and Children Amendment Act No.10 of 2004 calls for the identification
of light work activities for children ages 13 to 15; however, these
activities are not yet determined. (32) Penalties for adults convicted of
engaging children in prostitution in the Employment of Young Persons and
Children Act are different from those in the Penal Code. Although the Penal
Code treats child prostitution as a felony, with a minimum 20-year jail
sentence, the Employment of Young Persons and Children Act treats
it differently and imposes a fine of $35 to $165 and possible discretionary
prison time. (27,29) In addition, human trafficking
provisions remain discordant with international standards because they
require threats, the use of force, or coercion to be established for the
crime of child trafficking. (28) Although Zambia has
programs that target child labor, the scope of these programs is insufficient
to fully address the extent of the problem in all relevant sectors,
particularly regarding child labor in agriculture, domestic work, and
commercial sexual exploitation. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 6 June 2003 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/zambia2003.html [accessed 9 March
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 girls, child orphans and other disadvantaged 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. AIDS, Pregnancy and
Poverty Trap Ever More African Girls Sharon LaFraniere, New York Times, Patrice Lumumba Mozambique,
June 3, 2005 [accessed 18 August
2011] But for the last 25
years, the trends had been positive. African girls, like girls elsewhere,
were marrying later, and a growing percentage were in school. The AIDS epidemic now threatens to take
away those hard-won gains. Orphaned and impoverished by the deaths of
parents, girls here are being propelled into sex at shockingly early ages to
support themselves, their siblings and, all too often, their own children. In Zambia's
capital, Lusaka, impoverished relatives order some orphaned girls as young as
14 out on the street at night, telling them they must earn their keep, a
recent survey found. In Lesotho, a growing number of adolescent girls are
forced to work as maids or prostitutes, UNICEF researchers have reported. 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 – ZAMBIA - Increases in CSEC in Zambia have been attributed to a
number of factors, including poverty caused by an economic crisis, HIV/AIDS,
peer pressure, a desire for material wealth, and early marriage leading to
divorce. The growing number of families headed by children, the result of
HIV/AIDS, has meant that older children are turning to prostitution in order
to gain income for their siblings’ needs. Reports indicate that some foreign
nationals in Zambia feed, clothe and prostitute young girls. 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 18 August
2011] [80] In Zambia,
concerns are being expressed that the dramatic declines in school attendance
in areas affected by household food and water insecurity are the result of
parents putting young girls into prostitution in order to cope financially
with the crisis. UNICEF Zambia and government experts from the
Gender and Development Office were carrying out investigations into these
reports. Sex work rife among
street children UN Integrated
Regional Information Networks IRIN PlusNews, Johannesburg, 12 September 2003 www.irinnews.org/report/36024/zambia-sex-work-rife-among-street-children [accessed 18 August
2011] Commercial sex work
has become increasingly common among children aged 14 to 16. When educated about the danger of HIV/AIDS,
they say that AIDS is something in the future and that their hunger is a more
real and pressing need. Zambia should save
its own children... Japhet Banda, Times of
Zambia, 11 July 2003 allafrica.com/stories/200307140136.html [Last accessed 26
August 2011] When
Tomaida Tembo received news of her
impending trip to Lusaka, she was 500 km away in Katete’s
Kathumba village in the Eastern Province. The 11-year-old did not know how to
react. Lusaka to her, has been a mythical
place and according to those that had been to the city, it was a place of “agebenga” (bandits) and the “akapenta”
(prostitutes) who patrolled and patronised the
streets of the city of ‘lights’. What
had been a mythical place to Tomaida was soon to
become reality. To make her
travelling easy, the distant cousin had sent enough money to cover her
travelling expenses and a lot more to help her mother settle down after her
departure. That was five years ago
since the morning Tomaida left the sanctuary of her
mother on a journey that changed her life forever. Wondering on the cold streets of Lusaka, Tomaida awaits her next client on Addis Ababa drive. Massive child
labour in Zambia denounced afrol News, 25 October
2002 -- Sources: ICFTU & afrol archives www.afrol.com/News2002/zam008_labour_report.htm [accessed 17 January
2011] Neither were
children safe from the perils of prostitution. The report states that
"there are reports of forced prostitution [in Zambia], particularly of
children, of the trafficking of women and children to neighbouring
countries for the purposes of prostitution, and of combatants from neighbouring Angola kidnapping Zambians and taking them
back to Angola to perform various forms of forced labour." - htcp The Protection
Project - Zambia [DOC] The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS),
The Johns Hopkins University www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/zambia.doc [accessed 2009] FACTORS THAT
CONTRIBUTE TO THE TRAFFICKING INFRASTRUCTURE - HIV/AIDS, coupled with poverty,
has contributed to the proliferation of street children and child labor in
Zambia. About 80 percent of Zambia’s population lives in degrading conditions.
Poverty pervades both rural and urban areas, pushing most women, adolescents,
and children into the informal sector of the economy, where they sell a
variety of goods, their labor, or their bodies. Prostitution is rife in major
towns and smaller urban areas. Nearly 1 million children are reportedly
orphaned in the country, and 75,000 live on the streets. Nearly half of
Zambian children, regardless of orphan status, are not enrolled in primary
s. – htsccp Worst Forms of
Child Labour Report 2005 - Zambia Global March Against
Child Labour, 2005 beta.globalmarch.org/worstformsreport/world/zambia.html [accessed 13
September 2012] CHILD PROSTITUTION
AND PORNOGRAPHY - NATIONAL STATISTICS - There are an estimated 70,000 child sex
workers. (ECPAT
Bulletin, citing Observer, August 1996) ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** ECPAT Global
Monitoring Report on the status of action against commercial exploitation of
children - ZAMBIA [PDF] ECPAT International,
2007 www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/AF/Global_Monitoring_Report-ZAMBIA.pdf [accessed 18 August
2011] Several studies
describe more girls in prostitution than boys, the
majority of prostituted girls are aged between 14 and 18. According to the
International Labour Organization (ILO),
“prostitution has become rife in all major towns and peri-urban
areas”. In some cases, children trade sex for beer or second-hand clothing,
while boys may be paid in dollars to sleep with rich widows in hotels. A
number of reports indicating that boys are also being exploited in commercial
sex demand further investigation and research. In a research study recently
conducted by Children in Need (CHIN) – the ECPAT group in Zambia – and ECPAT
International, a 15-year-old male respondent reported that boys on the street
were being picked up by local men and given money for sex. In addition to
being sexually exploited in bars and guest houses, children are forced into
sexual acts with teachers and school authorities in exchange for better grades
or for lenient corporal punishment (although outlawed, corporal punishment is
still practiced in most government schools).
Traditional beliefs and practices also contribute to child
prostitution. For instance, some perpetrators seek younger children based on
the belief that sex with virgins or a young child can cure them of HIV/AIDS.
Furthermore, sexual abuse of children by adult males is often justified or
condoned, and the girl and her parents are often blamed if she is raped or
prostituted. Prostituted girls are stigmatised, but
not the men who exploit them. Children are also exploited through early
marriages, whereby parents offer their daughters for marriage in return for a
bride price, or ‘lobola’, in order to reduce the
burden of an extra child to feed and educate. The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor U.S. Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 2005 www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/zambia.htm [accessed 17 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 - Street children are especially vulnerable to
commercial sexual exploitation, and the problem of child prostitution is
widespread in Zambia. Zambia is a
source and transit country for women and children trafficked for the purpose
of sexual exploitation. 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/2005/61599.htm [accessed 11
February 2020] CHILDREN
-
There are laws that criminalize child prostitution; however, the law was not
enforced effectively, and child prostitution was widespread. The presence of
an estimated 30 thousand street children in Lusaka contributed to the
proliferation of street begging and prostitution. The laws against
pornography and the sexual exploitation of children under the age of 21 were
sporadically enforced. Trafficking of
children for sexual exploitation occurred. During the year the
government continued implementation of a strategy to provide shelter and
protection to street children, including prostitutes. The Ministry of Labor
reported that the majority of the five thousand children removed from child
labor during the year were street children. 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 - Zambia",
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