Over One Million Youngsters Trafficked In Worldwide Sex Trade

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, December 13, 2001

Over One Million Youngsters Trafficked In Worldwide Sex Trade

The multi-billion dollar worldwide sex trade in children is growing, with more than one million youngsters trafficked every year for the purpose of sexual exploitation, the United Nations Children's Fund said in a new report Wednesday.

"The situation is getting worse, paradoxically and ironically because of some of the progress in transport, communications, and the Internet," UNICEF's deputy executive director Kul Gautam told a news conference.

The Internet has made it much easier to distribute child pornography and modern transportation and communications facilitate moving larger numbers of children for longer distances, he said.

For example, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimates that some 45,000 to 50,000 women and children are smuggled into the United States are bound for the sex industry or for work "under egregious labor conditions," according to the report.

Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo wrote in the report that other factors "contribute to the growing incidence of the commercial and sexual exploitation of children, including poverty, family breakdown, gender discrimination, consumerism, tourism, lack of political will and weak enforcement of laws."

In 1986, she said, 20,000 children were estimated to be in the sex trade in the Philippines but in 2000, the estimated number rose to 100,000.

Child sexual exploitation is "a global phenomenon," but UNICEF believes "the problem is more acute in developing countries than developed countries," Gautam said.

Because traffickers operate clandestinely shuttling children through underground networks, and because some governments don't recognize the problem, accurate statistics are hard to come by, the report said.

ECPAT International, a voluntary group that campaigns against child sexual exploitation, estimates that 400,000 children and women are subjected to commercial sexual exploitation in India, 200,000 in Thailand, 100,000 in the Philippines, China's Taiwan and Brazil, and 35,000 in west Africa.

A new U.S. study by Richard Estes and Neil Alan Weiner estimates between 244,000 and 325,000 children and women are similarly exploited in the United States, UNICEF said.

The report, "Profiting from Abuse," was released to coincide with the Second World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, which takes place Dec. 17-20 in Yokohama, Japan. It is sponsored by UNICEF, ECPAT, voluntary groups supporting the 1989 convention, and the Japanese government.

Sex Trade May Lure 325,000 U.S. Kids