Torture in [Sri Lanka] [other countries]Human Trafficking in [Sri Lanka] [other countries]Street Children in [Sri Lanka] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Sri Lanka |
Child Prostitution The Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children In the early years of the 21st Century gvnet.com/childprostitution/SriLanka.htm
|
||
|
CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Pedophiles Prey On Sri Lankan Children The Movement to Prevent Child Prostitution
(MPCP) - News Letter At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 25 July 2011] It is widely
acknowledged that most children involved come from marginalized communities,
where they live in very low-income households. What is also disturbing is that a growing
number of boys engaged in this trade are not from poor families. For them it is more of a part time
activity, whilst attending school, without the knowledge of their parents. ***
ARCHIVES *** ECPAT Global Monitoring Report on the
status of action against commercial exploitation of children - SRI LANKA [PDF] ECPAT International, 2006 www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/South_Asia/Global_Monitoring_Report-SRI_LANKA.pdf [accessed 25 July 2011] A distinct
characteristic of sexual exploitation of children in The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/sri-lanka.htm [accessed 24 December 2010] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - The government estimates that more than 2,000
children are engaged in prostitution. The majority of children engaged
in prostitution are victimized by local citizens, though there are reports of
sex tourism as well. Trafficking of children typically does not cross
national borders; children are trafficked within the country to work as
domestic servants and for the purposes of sexual exploitation, especially at
tourist destinations. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61711.htm [accessed 24 December 2010] CHILDREN
-
Child prostitution was a problem in coastal resort areas. The government
estimated that there were more than two thousand child prostitutes in the
country, but private groups claimed that the number was as high as six thousand.
Citizens committed much of the child sexual abuse in the form of child
prostitution; however, some child prostitutes were boys who catered to
foreign tourists. Some of these children were forced into prostitution (see
section 5, Trafficking). The Department of Probation and Child Care Services
provided protection to child victims of abuse and sexual exploitation and
worked with local NGOs that provided shelter. The tourist bureau conducted
awareness-raising programs for at-risk children in resort regions prone to
sex tourism. 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/srilanka2003.html [accessed 24 December 2010] [47] The Committee
welcomes the Penal Code (Amendment) Act No. 22 of 1995, which seeks to
protect children from sexual exploitation.
However, it is concerned that existing legislation is not effectively
enforced and that child victims of sexual exploitation do not always receive
adequate recovery assistance. This bedtime story will wake you up! Steve Fernando, The Sunday Times, July 06,
2008 www.sundaytimes.lk/080706/Plus/timesplus009.html [accessed 25 July 2011] I know we’re only
halfway through 2008, but I’m prepared to bet that Jake Oorloff’s
A Bedtime Story is probably the most stunningly original drama you will see
on stage this year. Our normal lives?
On a normal day in Sri Lankan there are, according to informed sources, more
than 40,000 children working as prostitutes. The majority are boys who engage
in homosexual and heterosexual sex with foreign tourists. Sri Lanka is, like
Thailand and Cambodia, a well established sex-tourism destination. A Bedtime Story chronicles the life of Kasun, a child prostitute, as seen through the eyes of
four individuals: his father, his mother, his teacher and his classmate.The narrators in turn take time to establish
their own personal context before exploring their relationship with Kasun. A poor uneducated father, with no permanent job, labouring hard to earn what
little he can for his caring wife and their quickly growing family. A loving
mother, striving to feed and look after her three children and support her
hard working husband, as they are forced from one town to the next in search
of work. Then the father receives an
unexpected offer from an acquaintance to earn a little extra money for the family.
All Kasun has to do was to play with some
foreigners who like children but have none of their own. Kasun
returns from his first day at work with the money that was promised, but also
with explanations and descriptions that a father cannot bear to hear. Yet the
die is so quickly cast. Kasun’s money provides
respite for the family’s daily financial struggles and he returns to play
with his foreign friends, again, and again, and again. Moves to eradicate child prostitution in
coastal belt Nadira Gunatilleke,
Daily News, www.dailynews.lk/2007/07/09/news40.asp [accessed 25 July 2011] The National Child
Protection Authority (NCPA) will educate children and their parents on eradicating
child prostitution in the coastal belt, Government Information Department
sources said. The sources said the
NCPA will raise awareness among children and parents through documentaries,
lectures and posters. They will be
educated on the negative impacts of child prostitution. Steps will be taken
to educate the whole community in the coastal belt. Educating children
involved in child prostitution and their parents is not successful because
they are not willing to take part in awareness raising programmes
and hardly participate in them, sources said. Concluding Observations of the Committee on
Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights International Covenant on Economic, Social,
and Cultural Rights, www1.umn.edu/humanrts/esc/srilanka1998.html [accessed 19 September 2011] [13] The Committee notes
with concern the plight of hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankan women working
abroad as domestic helpers, many of them underpaid and treated as virtual
slaves. The Committee regrets that the Government has not made a serious
effort to assess the negative impact of this phenomenon on children who are
left in vulnerable and difficult circumstances without their mothers and to take
appropriate remedial measures. Five Years After 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 – SRI LANKA – Regarding prevention, Protecting Environment and Children
Everywhere (PEACE/ ECPAT Sri Lanka) has launched a youth leadership program
to strengthen the capacity of vulnerable children from underprivileged
families, who are at high risk of being lured into prostitution, pornography
or drug trafficking. About 60 children will benefit from the program. 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 25 July 2011] [67] The National
Child Protection Authority has formulated a National Policy to deal with the
commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking of
children. Legislation criminalizes those who hire, employ,
persuade, use, induce, or coerce any child for illicit sexual intercourse or
to appear or perform in any obscene or indecent exhibition, indecent
photograph or film, or who have possession of any such photo or
film. Concerning trafficking for the purposes of adoption, Sri
Lankan legislation criminalizes a comprehensive range of activities designed
to procure a child for this purpose. Prosecutions relating to the
sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography were made in 2001
and 2002; unfortunately, no details were available. Many Children
Still Abused And Neglected In Damitha Hemachandra,
Daily Mirror, October 8, 2003 www.tamilcanadian.com/article/4042 [accessed 25 July 2011] Child prostitution,
child labor, violence against children and general inconsideration of
children's feelings and views are evident in Protection Project - Sri Lanka The www.protectionproject.org/sri_lanka.htm [access date unavailable] The Current
Reality Of Street Children: A Geographical Perspective Child Hope www.childhopeusa.com/kids/geography.html [accessed 25 July 2011] Child prostitution
has become a serious problem in A Journalist's Perspective Of The Problem
In Ms Carol Aloysius, UNESCO Expert Meeting
on: Sexual abuse of children, Child Pornography and Paedophilia
on the Internet: an international challenge, unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001147/114730eo.pdf [accessed 25 July 2011] It was a study by
PEACE, that shocked Sri Lankan society as a whole into realizing that far
from being a haven for tourists in search of the sun and our golden beaches,
our country was also attracting an unsavory tribe of tourist -- the
pedophiles who came here solely to gratify their
sexual needs on young children. Pedophiles Prey On Sri Lankan Children The Movement to Prevent Child Prostitution
(MPCP) - News Letter At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 25 July 2011] It is widely
acknowledged that most children involved come from marginalized communities,
where they live in very low-income households. What is also disturbing is that a growing
number of boys engaged in this trade are not from poor families. For them it is more of a part time
activity, whilst attending school, without the knowledge of their parents. Dilip Ganguly,
The Associated Press AP, At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 25 July 2011] 18 percent of the
boys admitted having been sexually abused during childhood, and a majority of
them were abused by either a relative or a neighbor or even by a priest. "In some cases parents themselves have
sold their children. One parent told us that they were not worried because
their boys would not get pregnant," the investigator said. Movement to Prevent Child Prostitution
(MPCP) Sri Lanka Welfare Fund (SWF) At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 25 July 2011] Child exploitation
in Sri Lanka is linked with the rapid growth of tourism since the 1970 s and
estimates around 100,000 children between the ages of 6 -14 are kept in
brothels and an additional 5000 children between 10 -18 are working in
tourist areas. Legislation of INTERPOL member states on sexual
offences against children - Sri Lanka INTERPOL, National Laws www.interpol.int/Public/Children/SexualAbuse/NationalLaws/csaSriLanka.asp [accessed 25 July 2011] I. AGES FOR LEGAL
PURPOSES/II. RAPE
- The minimum age of 'consent' in the offence of rape has been increased from
twelve (12) to sixteen (16) years. This means that the matter of 'consent'
arises only when the raped individual is above the age of sixteen (16) years. A 'child' means 'a
person aged under eighteen (18) years old'. Mandatory minimum
sentences have been imposed (10 years instead of 2 years in most cases) such
as in case of rape, gross sexual abuse and acts of gross indecency between
two persons. Monetary
compensation for the victims of sexual abuse, acts of gross indecency, rape
and gang rape, will be imposed, the amount being determined by Court relating
to the injuries caused to the victim of the offence. Millions Suffer in Sex Slavery United Press International UPI, Chicago,
April 24, 2001 archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/4/23/184354.shtml [accessed 25 July 2011] Ten thousand children between the ages of 6
and 14 are in Sri Lankan brothels. End Child Exploitation - Faces of
Exploitation UNICEF, Faces of Exploitation, January
2003, ISBN: 1 871440 26 2 www.childtrafficking.com/Docs/unicef_2003__faces_of_explo.pdf [accessed 24 December 2010] [page 22] CHILDREN IN THE SEX
INDUSTRY
- Children may also work independently, offering themselves for cash, as do
many of the 10,000 to 15,000 boys selling themselves to sex tourists on the
beaches of 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 – |
Torture in [Sri Lanka] [other countries]Human Trafficking in [Sri Lanka] [other countries]Street Children in [Sri Lanka] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Sri Lanka