Human Trafficking in [South Africa] [other countries]Street Children in [South Africa] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [South Africa |
Child Prostitution The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of
Children In the
first ten years of the 21st Century -
2000 to 2009
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CAUTION: The following links and accompanying text have been culled
from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Teen sex worker sells her body for R10 a time At the tender age of 13, when most girls are still cuddling their dolls and braiding their hair, Suzy has been a prostitute for two years. She is paid R10 for sex. But included in the deal is an extra R5 for her younger brother Fred, who waits quietly for her outside the door while she is with "a client". Zille on drugs, decay, and child abuse Child abuse is a complex problem,
but it is clear that the rampant drug and alcohol abuse is a major factor
driving it. When parents abuse drugs and alcohol, they neglect their
children. These children are left to their own devices, at the mercy of those
who prey on children. And, when
children are neglected and there are drug dealers on every street corner, it
is not long before they are caught up in a cycle of drug and alcohol abuse themselves. Without the means to pay for
drugs and alcohol, these children often resort to selling their bodies on the
street to buy drugs. And this is what is happening here in Vrededorp, an area that has become infamous for having
the highest rate of child abuse in the greater Johannesburg region. The Teddy Bear Clinic in Johannesburg is
currently caring for a 9 year old boy who was selling his body on Vrededorp's streets to pay for his addiction to crack
cocaine. His is only one such case.
Children are being sold for sex right under the noses of the police. I
am told that the corner of Caroline and Vygie
Street is notorious for child prostitution. It is also happens to be located
next to the Johannesburg Headquarters of the Flying Squad. ***
ARCHIVES *** Runaways - Where To Turn For Help Before You Are Homeless Here are the best phone numbers to
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doesn't matter what time you call In
South Africa, call 08000 55555 www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/AF/Global_Monitoring_Report-SOUTH-AFRICA.pdf The occurrence of sexual
exploitation of children through prostitution, child pornography and
trafficking for sexual purposes has been acknowledged by the South African
Government through their commitment to the Stockholm Agenda for Action and
other international conventions. Despite this commitment, progress towards
the reduction and elimination of commercial sexual exploitation of children
(CSEC) in the country has been slow and incidents of such violations against
children continue to grow. U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - There are reports that child prostitution is increasing. There have been reports that some cities
are becoming destinations for tourists seeking sex with minors. Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 CHILDREN - Child prostitution continued
during the year. NGOs provided shelter,
medical, and legal assistance for child prostitutes and a hot line for
victims of child abuse. The government donated land and buildings for various
shelters for victims of sexual abuse, street children, and orphans. TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – The law
prohibits the commercial sexual exploitation of children, sexual intercourse
with children under 16, and permitting a female under 16 to stay in a brothel
for the purpose of prostitution. The country was a destination, transit, and
point of origin for the trafficking of persons, including children, from
other countries in Africa, Asia, and Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2000 [39] While noting the efforts of
the State party to implement legislation, policies and programs to prevent
and combat the sexual exploitation of children, the Committee remains
concerned at the high incidence of commercial sexual exploitation. In the
light of article 34 and other related articles of the Convention, the
Committee recommends that the State party undertake studies with a view to
designing and implementing appropriate policies and measures, including care
and rehabilitation, to prevent and combat the sexual exploitation of
children. The
Curse of Child Prostitution allafrica.com/stories/200904100077.html
Child prostitution, however, is
not only about little girls as young boys are also increasingly being
targeted. The International Organisation for Migration has identified this as a
growing problem in Chiredzi where boys are leaving
for South Africa where they get work as "comforters", mainly for
widows. Prostituted girls’ parents not found streetkidnews.blogsome.com/2008/06/17/p1374/ www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=786159 Their parents did not try to find
them and it seems the only person who wanted them was the pimp who sold
them. Durban police have not found the
parents of two girls, aged between eight and 12, whom they rescued two weeks
ago. A man had allegedly been selling them on the city’s notorious Mahatma
Gandhi Road (formerly Point Road) for sex. The girls lived on the streets and
the police have not established where they come from. They are being cared for at a safe house
but, according to those who assist street children, the likelihood of the
girls returning to the streets is high. “Right now, these two little girls
do not realise that they have been saved — they
feel like they are being punished. One has to understand the mentality of a
street child to understand why they run away,” he said. “I am almost certain that these
girls are missing the friends they bonded with on the streets and they also
miss the money they were getting from the pimp.” - sccp Zille on drugs, decay, and child abuse Child abuse is a complex problem,
but it is clear that the rampant drug and alcohol abuse is a major factor
driving it. When parents abuse drugs and alcohol, they neglect their
children. These children are left to their own devices, at the mercy of those
who prey on children. And, when
children are neglected and there are drug dealers on every street corner, it
is not long before they are caught up in a cycle of drug and alcohol abuse themselves. Without the means to pay for
drugs and alcohol, these children often resort to selling their bodies on the
street to buy drugs. And this is what is happening here in Vrededorp, an area that has become infamous for having
the highest rate of child abuse in the greater Johannesburg region. The Teddy Bear Clinic in Johannesburg is
currently caring for a 9 year old boy who was selling his body on Vrededorp's streets to pay for his addiction to crack
cocaine. His is only one such case.
Children are being sold for sex right under the noses of the police. I
am told that the corner of Caroline and Vygie
Street is notorious for child prostitution. It is also happens to be located
next to the Johannesburg Headquarters of the Flying Squad. SA's child abuse statistics incoherent www.sabcnews.com/south_africa/social/0,2172,160830,00.html More than 70 young girls in the
past year have been rescued from prostitution in the towns of Atlantis, Delft
and Beaufort West in the Northern Cape.
More than 100 children protested today against child prostitution and
human trafficking in Beaufort West. Molo Songololo spokesperson, Patrick Solomons,
says it is difficult for the organisation to get
the girls out of prostitution as they do not have an alternative financial
solution for them. A rehabilitation
centre for child sex workers is expected to be opened in Beaufort West by
April 2008. SOUTH AFRICA - According to the Police Child
Protection Unit in Johannesburg, about 28,000 children are engaged in
prostitution and approximately 15 new girls between the age of 15 and 18 are arrested
every month. A study carried out by the Khayelethu
Health Centre in Diepsloot, a settlement in the
north of Johannesburg, revealed that 40 per cent of girls below 16 are
involved in prostitution. One in five girls is HIV-positive. Unemployment in the
community is more than 50 per cent, and child prostitution takes the form of
survival sexual exploitation. Schools in Kwa Zulu
Natal have reported that there are prostitution rings operating in their
schools where groups of girls between 11 and 16 years old frequent discos and
prostitute themselves. About one-fourth of Cape Town's street children are
estimated to be engaged in prostitution. Kids ‘primed for sex jobs’ www.news24.com/Regional_Papers/Components/Category_Article_Text_Template/0,2430,433-441-442_2213145%7EE,00.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Pimps are apparently already
recruiting their unsuspecting victims on the city’s streets, promising them
better lives after the World Cup and stringing them along with cash and even
drugs in the meantime. A social worker,
who declined to be named, told People’s Post that children, who will not even
be teenagers by 2010, are being lured into prostitution by organised crime syndicates that plan to reap foreign
currency by selling the youngsters to sex tourists. But it is not only poor or
neglected children who are in danger: Reports from local police stations
around the country warn of teenagers being abducted at shopping malls or
while walking home from school. Their
kidnappers’ intentions are to “prepare them for the World Cup”, according to
the reports. Police have bust two men for
allegedly running brothels in Soweto and luring girls as young as 10 to work
as prostitutes. Soweto police spokesperson Constable Sefako
Xaba told Talk Radio 702 that the investigation
followed a complaint from the parents of an 11-year-old girl. It was alleged that at least 10
children aged between 10 and 14 years old were paid for sex. The men, aged 24 and 28, were arrested in Emndeni and Dobsonville Gardens
on Monday. Xaba said one of the men was from Venda
and the other from KwaZulu Natal. They have appeared in the Protea Magistrate's Court and have been charged with statutory
rape. Angry Blouberg
residents have called for the demolition of the beachfront toilets, which
have become associated with child prostitution and drug peddling. Locals gathered for a heated meeting in
Table View last night to discuss the public toilets which beachfront
residents claim have become a favoured spot for
adult men to pick up young boys for sexual favours. Teen
sex worker sells her body for R10 a time At the tender age of 13, when most
girls are still cuddling their dolls and braiding their hair, Suzy has been a
prostitute for two years. She is paid
R10 for sex. But included in the deal is an extra R5 for her younger brother
Fred, who waits quietly for her outside the door while she is with "a
client". Poverty,
drugs driving kids to sell sex on street KIDS as young as 12 are selling
sex in Central in exchange for accommodation, drugs and money. Children running away from poverty and abuse
in the poorer areas of Police spokesman Captain Verna
Brink said a number of children, some as young as 12, had been found during
police raids conducted in Central over the last two weeks. Some of the children had been reported
missing by their families in the northern areas, while others come from more
affluent suburbs, and appear to have become involved in prostitution to
support a drug habit.” Street
children as young as 8 being lured into prostitution by tourists Street children, some as young as
eight years, are increasingly being lured into prostitution by local and
foreign tourists in the Knysna area. Police say they are aware of the
problem but poverty and a culture of silence are obstacles in their attempts
to prevent child prostitution. Knysna Child Welfare has conducted
several workshops on child trafficking in the Garden Route and reports that a
trend has emerged that street children are being used for prostitution, drug
smuggling and other crimes. Chairman Trix
Marais said there was a “vicious cycle of silence.
Their parents and the community know about it but they keep quiet.” Thousands of girls and boys, some
as young as 10, are selling themselves on Durban's streets where many are
making as much as R15 000 a month. Children's groups and police are
now saying the problem is out of control and that many are not selling
themselves for survival but rather just for money to buy luxury items, cellphones and other teen status symbols. He told the horror story of street
children employed as drug mules between the shacks in the squatter camp of
some 200 inhabitants and the station roof, empty buildings in the Culemborg area being occupied by squatters, and child
prostitution in exchange for drugs. Sex
workers and clients 'made to pay bribes' These children are given R30 to
have sex with adults, but claim that police demanded 10 times that amount not
to arrest them. "Sometimes they
pick us up and drive with us for a while, and then they say they will put us
in the cells with the killers if we don't give them money. ECPAT: Fifth Report on implementation of the Agenda for
Action [DOC] www.ecpat.net/eng/Ecpat_inter/publication/other/english/Doc_page/ecpat_5th_a4a_2001_full.doc At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [B]
COUNTRY UPDATES – Loophole
may free sex predators Loopholes in the Child Care and Sexual
Offences Act might allow the suspects to escape the law. This was because the
legislation states that the main witnesses in these cases must be the
victimized children themselves but, since most are drug addicts, they would
be considered unreliable witnesses. Our children are selling
sex to survive A shocking child sex exploitation
study has revealed how SOUTHERN AFRICA:
Human Trafficking Stretches Across the Region Children's rights groups like the
Cape Town-based Molo Songolo estimate that 28,000 children engage in
prostitution in South
Africa Becoming International Market for Child Sex Trade A report to the UN Commission on
Human Rights says that No Laws
Against Child Prostitution Children are increasingly being
forced into prostitution in It is the latest in a series of
rapes of baby girls - some of them involving children less than one year-old,
which has left South Africans reeling with horror. Every day the newspapers bring awful revelations:
a nine-month-old girl gang-raped by six men; an eight-month-old raped and
left by the roadside. The government
is trying to dispel a widespread rumor - that having sex with a virgin cures
AIDS. Traditional healers, or
witchdoctors, are blamed for spreading this idea, and encouraging child rape. Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices -
2000 CHILDREN - Child prostitution is on the rise,
primarily in Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg. There reportedly has
been an increase in the number of children who live on the streets, and
observers believe that this circumstance has contributed to the growing
number of child prostitutes. The child sex industry increasingly has
become organized, with children either being forced into prostitution or
exploited by their parents to earn money for the family. 38 000 child prostitutes in SA South Africa is a major destination and source for international trafficking of children, a conference on human trafficking heard in Pretoria on Tuesday. Susan Kreston of the Council of the National Centre for Justice and the Rule of Law in the USA told the conference - arranged by the Institute for Security Studies - that between 28 000 and 38 000 children were currently being prostituted in South Africa. "Up to 25% of prostitutes in South Africa are children, and up to 25% of street children (are prostitutes)," she told the conference. S
Africa's Child Sex Trafficking Nightmare VIRGIN
SEX MYTH - The report
says the southern African myth - that Aids can be prevented by having sex
with a virgin - has also contributed to the increase, as has an increased
demand among foreigners for sex with black children. Children, particularly from 40
000 child prostitutes - Street children vulnerable to sex trade “I started walking around with
nothing to do. That's when I met this man. To me he looked like an ordinary
man, a nice guy. First he asked me if I'm hungry. Of course I'm hungry. He takes me to a restaurant near
the parlours, buys me food - hamburger and chips. I
think: 'This is a treat.' "And then he says: 'You must
be tired. Why don't you come with me?' So I go home with this guy old enough
to be my grandpa." That was the start of a sexual
relationship that spanned more than 10 years. Besides the
"emotional" connection he could not explain, Eric said he would go
back for the R10 he got "to do this little thing which disgusted
me". "This was my easy way of
getting money," he said. Despite his disgust with the man - he had also
molested two other friends of Eric's - he still defends him. "He wasn't
like other paedophiles that would rape and molest
children." Mean Streets - Child Prostitution In South Africa www.parentsurf.com/p/articles/mi_m1264/is_6_32/ai_78966299 An alarming number of adolescent
girls, many living in the impoverished townships of Child Sex Industry
Booms In South Africa Study On Black
Child Prostitution Calls For Government Action Pretoria Black child prostitutes walking
the streets of Child
Abuse Cape Town South Africa ABDUCTION
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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,
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Human Trafficking in [South Africa] [other countries]Street Children in [South Africa] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [South Africa