C S E C The Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/childprostitution/Finland.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 *** More Men Buying Sex
from Minors Helsingin Sanomat,
YLE News, 02 March 2008 www.yle.fi/uutiset/news/2008/03/more_men_buying_sex_from_minors_284795.html [accessed 15 May
2011] Police are investigating
cases where 13 to 17-year-olds sold sexual services for money - although they
say that alcohol, drugs, CD's, jeans and clothes are an even more common form
of payment. Around one in three underage prostitutes are boys, but as far as
police know, all of the customers have been men. The crime is difficult to track, as both
buyer and seller are keen to keep the transaction secret. While prostitution
is legal in Finland, buying sex from minors is not. ***
ARCHIVES *** Runaways
- Where To Turn For Help Before You Are Homeless Rebeccas Community -- This
is for anyone aged up to 13 years old who is thinking about running away www.homeless.org.au/runaways.htm [accessed 15 May 2011] Here are the best
phone numbers to call …They are Confidential - which means they
won't tell anyone about your call unless you want them to talk to somebody
for you, or you are in danger. They
are open 24 Hours - it doesn't matter what time you call In Finland, call 09 753 5121 ECPAT Country
Monitoring Report [PDF] ECPAT International,
2006 www.ecpat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Global_Monitoring_Report-FINLAND.pdf [accessed 28 August
2020] Desk review of
existing information on the sexual exploitation of children (SEC) in Finland.
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/finland/ [accessed 28 August
2020] SEXUAL
EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN - The country prohibits the commercial sexual
exploitation of children, including child pornography and the sale, offering,
or procuring of children for prostitution. The law prohibits purchase of
sexual services from minors and covers “grooming” (enticement of a child),
including in a virtual environment or through mobile telephone contacts.
Authorities enforced the law effectively, including through a
one-million-euro ($1.1 million) grant announced in August to fund training on
how to recognize online solicitation and exploitation. The minimum age for
consensual sex is 16. The law regards a person whose age cannot be
determined, but who can reasonably be assumed to be younger than 18, as a
child. In March the
National Bureau of Investigation completed a pretrial investigation of five
men suspected of importing, receiving, and distributing sexually offensive
material involving children between 2004 and 2018. Some of the suspects were
also accused of having sexually abused the victims. In July police detained a
Helsinki man on the suspicion of committing sex crimes, including aggravated
rape and aggravated child sexual abuse, against 12 girls. In August police
completed a pretrial investigation of a resident of the city of Espoo who was
suspected of committing sex crimes against 52 girls through social media. In
the first quarter of the year, there were 475 reported cases of child
exploitation. Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the
Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 30-09-2005 sim.law.uu.nl/SIM/CaseLaw/uncom.nsf/0/e75b499842881be7c1257092002e4f76?OpenDocument [accessed 5 February
2011] [52] While
welcoming that recent amendments to the Penal Code introduced the crime of trafficking
in Finnish legislation, as well as the National Plan of Action Combating the
Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children of 2000 and the National Plan of
Action against Trafficking in Human Beings of 2005, the Committee is
concerned at the information that persons, including children, continue to be
trafficked to and through the country. 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 – FINLAND – The Committee on the Rights of the Child has
expressed its deep concern about the problem of child sex tourism committed
by Finns in nearby countries of the former Soviet Union, and urged that
adequate measures should be taken to combat it. Finnish and Russian
authorities have been working together to tackle child sex tourism. This cooperation led to the prosecution of
a Finnish man for sexually exploiting a minor in Contribution
by President of the Republic Tarja Halonen at a conference of experts dealing with child
trafficking in the Baltic Sea region "Stop Child Trafficking: Modern-Day
Slavery" in President Tarja Halonen, www.childcentre.info/projects/traffickin/halonen_speech.doc [accessed 15 May
2011] A question often asked
is how many children fall victim to trafficking here in our own Baltic Sea
Region. To be frank, we do not know exactly. Researchers trying to compile
data have had to face harassment, intimidation and threats. The people
engaged in child trafficking are determined to persist in their illegal and
immoral activities. Nor are those who exploit children any more willing to
tell about their own actions. It has not proved
possible to stop child trafficking through bans and prohibitions, for which
reason attempts have been made to tackle its underlying causes as well. That
is not easy, either, because both opinions and economic and social structures
change only very slowly and after a lot of hard and tenacious work. The main focus has been
on children. We have examined what makes a child vulnerable to the sex trade
– poverty, broken families, lack of education, abuse and violence at home,
and so on. Protecting children from these things is good of course, but we
must not close our eyes to the fact that the real cause of the sex trade is a
demand for sex with minors, not poverty. Poverty only makes it possible to
find a victim. We must pay more attention to the users. Children in Viipuri Attest to Sex Trips by Finns Marjo Ollikainen
in Viipuri/Vyborg, Helsingin
Sanomat, 29.1.2000 www2.hs.fi/english/archive/thisweek/05082000.html [accessed 15 May
2011] The “New Thailand”
for Finnish men extends from Sortavala in Russian
Karelia down to Viipuri and No indication of
widespread organised child prostitution in Finland Helsingin Sanomat,
International Edition, 12.6.2002 www2.hs.fi/english/archive/news.asp?id=20020612IE7 [accessed 15 May
2011] POLICE CONCERNED
ABOUT USE OF INTERNET CHAT LINES FOR CHILD SEX SERVICES - Police believe
that some children in The Situation in people.exeter.ac.uk/watupman/undergrad/aac/suomi.htm [accessed 15 May
2011] DE FACTO - Prostitution has
not been common in Protection
Project: The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/finland.doc [accessed 2009] National Action Plan Combating Human Trafficking in Child Centre for
Children at Risk in the www.childcentre.info/projects/traffickin/finland/dbaFile12215.html [accessed 15 May
2011] The Government in its
general session on 25 August 2005 approved the national action plan against
human trafficking. The action plan is the first ever proposal for
comprehensive measures to combat human trafficking in Sexual
exploitation of children rises in UN News Centre, 6
May 2004 www.un.org/special-rep/ohrlls/News_flash2004/06%20May%20Sexual%20exploitation%20of%20children.htm [accessed 15 May
2011] Last year as many
as 100,000 tourists, mainly from Britain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Germany,
visited Gambia. Andris Straumanis,
Editor, Latvians Online, June 15, 2004 latviansonline.com/news/article/107/ [accessed 5 February
2011] Women and children
from ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** ECPAT Global
Monitoring Report on the status of action against commercial exploitation of
children - FINLAND [PDF] ECPAT International www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/Europe/Global_Monitoring_Report-FINLAND.pdf [accessed 15 May
2011] Prostitution in the
country is usually formally organised through
procuring organisations which are careful to ensure
that the individuals they engage in sexual activities are not minors, because
of the stiff penalties and the great risk of getting caught by the
authorities. As a result, most individuals involved in prostitution in the
country are between the ages of 18-29. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61647.htm [accessed 8 February
2020] CHILDREN
- There
were reports of trafficking of children for sexual exploitation TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– Most trafficking involved women and girls from All
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