C S E C The Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/childprostitution/Guatemala.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. HELP for Victims National Civil Police ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Guatemala: Where
Sexual Exploitation of Minors Is Not a Crime Alberto Mendoza,
Inter Press Service News Agency IPS, Guatemala City, Oct 13, 2006 www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35100 [accessed 20 May
2011] www.ipsnews.net/2006/10/guatemala-where-sexual-exploitation-of-minors-is-not-a-crime/ [accessed 6 November
2016] Sexual exploitation of minors is not classified as a crime in Guatemala, where activists say child sex tourism is on the rise, and the toughest penalty for "corruption of minors" and "aggravated procuring" is a 400 dollar fine. "I had problems at home, and a girlfriend took me to work with her in a bar." That is how Alba, at the age of 14, began to be sexually exploited in a brothel on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital. Her mother was demanding that she bring money home, and she saw it as a way to earn an income. For Alba's family, which is poor, the 160 dollars a month that she brought home was an important source of income. ***
ARCHIVES *** ECPAT Country
Monitoring Report [PDF] ONG Raíces & ONG Paicabí, ECPAT
International, 2014 www.ecpat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/CMR_GUATEMALA_FINAL.pdf [accessed 30 August
2020] [SPANISH] Desk review of existing
information on the sexual exploitation of children (SEC) in Guatemala. 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/guatemala/ [accessed 30 August
2020] SEXUAL
EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN - The law provides sentences ranging from 13 to 24
years in prison, depending on the victim’s age, for engaging in sex with a
minor. The minimum age of consensual sex is 18. The law prohibits
child pornography and establishes penalties of six to 10 years in prison for
producing, promoting, and selling child pornography and two to four years’
imprisonment for possessing it. The Public Ministry and the PNC conducted
several raids against alleged online child pornography networks. The Regional
Unit against Trafficking in Persons, responsible for eight departments in the
Western Highlands and launched in 2018, was expanding the government’s
investigative capacity against child pornography offenders. The commercial
sexual exploitation of children, including child sex tourism, remained a
problem, including in privately run orphanages. 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 30 August
2020] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor [page 562] Children, both
Guatemalan-born and from other countries, are engaged in commercial sexual
exploitation, including in sex tourism. (31) Girls, LGBTI persons, and
indigenous Guatemalans are particularly vulnerable to trafficking. (31)
Traffickers are increasingly using social media to recruit children. (30)
Multiple sources indicate that children are recruited into gangs to serve as
lookouts, couriers, and drug dealers. (1) Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 8 June 2001 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/guatemala2001.html [accessed 8 February
2011] [52] While noting
that the National Plan against Sexual and Commercial Exploitation is in the
final stages of elaboration, the Committee expresses its deep concern that,
with regard to the increasing phenomenon of commercial sexual exploitation of
children, in particular girls, there are no data available, legislation is
inadequate, cases involving sexually exploited children are often not
investigated and prosecuted, and no rehabilitation programs are available. Child Trafficking
Soar in Prensa Latina News Agency,
Jul 23, 2007 genderberg.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=2522 [accessed 8 February
2011] Maria Eugenia Villareal, member of the NGO, said girls aged eight to
fourteen are sold as sex slaves or used in risky sectors like garbage
collection and classification, peddling and construction. Attorney Alex Colop calls serious problem the absence of laws with
severe sanctions for such practices since the perpetrators walk free on bail
or pay a fine. In addition, the
children do not press charges fearing threats from the exploiters or to loose
their income source. 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 – Child Prostitution:
A Growing Scourge W. E. Gutman, The www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_10/issue_07/travel_01.html [accessed 20 May
2011] lab.org.uk/sex-tourism-threatens-central-americas-youth [accessed 5 November
2016] A
REGION OUT OF CONTROL - At least 5,000 minors live in the
streets of Guatemala and many have turned to prostitution to survive. Attributed in part to Guatemala's dismal
economy, this phenomenon is also blamed on an alarming rise in the use of
crack cocaine among homeless youth, a practice that further prejudice them in
the eyes of trigger-happy police who often rape, torture and murder them. The Protection
Project - The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/guatemala.doc [accessed 2009] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - A United Nations
report reveals that about 2,000 prostituted minors were working in Human Rights
Internet, For The Record 2002 - The
United Nations Human Rights System, Volume 4: Latin America & the At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 14
September 2011] The Committee
expressed concern about the following elements, inter alia: the
apparent lack of coordination between numerous national mechanisms at various
levels aimed at institutionalizing women's rights and gender mainstreaming;
the fact that, while the Constitution refers to the principle of equality,
the terms "equity" and "equality" appear to be used synonymously
in the government's reports and programmes; the
ambiguity of laws dealing with prostitution, particularly child prostitution;
the high level of child prostitution and sexual exploitation of minors. ECPAT-USA
Testifies Before the U S Senate Sharon L.
Wallenberg, Main www.usservas.org/UN%20Reports/un_summer_2002.htm [accessed 20 May
2011] CASA ALIANZA, A
CENTRAL AMERICAN NGO
- Instead of
the children being sent to an adequate home for trafficked victims, the six
girls – as young as 14 and one of them pregnant – were sent to the Crack
Blamed For Rise In Central American Child Prostitution The Associated Press
www.latinamericanstudies.org/guatemala/crack.htm [accessed 20 May
2011] It didn't used to
be so hard for girls on the street to get drugs such as glue, but the higher
price of crack has induced more children into prostitution. Nowhere has child prostitution taken off
like in If
You Turn Up Dead, No One Will Wonder Why Diego Cevallos, Inter Press Service News Agency ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=27817 [accessed 20 May
2011] [accessed 6 November
2016] According to Capellín, who provided IPS with some data from the
upcoming report, the researchers found minors under
18 years of age working as prostitutes in all of the 50 brothels they visited
in Guatemala. Regional
Governmental Congress on Sexual Exploitation of Children [PDF] Carlos Alberto García Regas, BA, Attorney
General, Sexual Exploitation of Children in Guatemala www.iin.oas.org/Congreso%20Explotation%20Sexual/C.A._Garcia_Guatemala_ingles.PDF [accessed 19
November 2016] ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/guatemala.htm [accessed 8 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 - Street children tend to be especially vulnerable to
sexual exploitation and other forms of violence, constituting a serious
problem in Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61729.htm [accessed 9 February
2020] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS -
Trafficking was particularly a problem in the capital and in towns along the
borders with Human Rights
Reports » 2003 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27900.htm [accessed 2 April
2020] CHILDREN - Child
prostitution was especially a problem in the capital and in the towns of
Escuintla, Tecun Uman,
and Coban. Child prostitution in towns along the
borders with All
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