Informant38

Noting a flurry of news reports indicating an increase in the number of children on the streets in Baghdad, UNICEF says the situation is ripe for exploitation of children.
In the chaos of the post-war environment, in Iraq normal community networks that protect children are not fully functioning. That can leave children exposed to exploitation. Hundreds of thousands of children are trafficked each year around the world for brutal child labour and sexual abuse.
UNICEF warns that while street children are a concern in Iraq, there is no overnight solution. The issue of street children is a very recent phenomenon in Iraq. Prior to the 1991 Gulf War, the problem simply did not exist, and it will take time to reverse this trend.
While well-meaning people around the world might think that international adoption is a legitimate way to help some of these children quickly, UNICEF is concerned that too often unscrupulous child traffickers will try exploiting the chaos and trying to pass themselves off as legitimate agents of good.
This is why UNICEF strongly supports getting all Iraqi children back in school as a way of protecting them from exploitation and injury.

UNICEF 13 June 2003

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Trafficking in children is a global problem affecting large numbers of children. Some estimates have as many as 1.2 million children being trafficked every year. There is a demand for trafficked children as cheap labour or for sexual exploitation. Children and their families are often unaware of the dangers of trafficking, believing that better employment and lives lie in other countries.
Child trafficking is lucrative and linked with criminal activity and corruption. It is often hidden and hard to address.
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Surveys indicate that 30 to 35 per cent of all sex workers in the Mekong sub-region of Southeast Asia are between 12 and 17 years of age.

Mexico�s social service agency reports that there are more than 16,000 children engaged in prostitution, with tourist destinations being among those areas with the highest number.

In Lithuania, 20 to 50 percent of prostitutes are believed to be minors. Children as young as age 11 are known to work as prostitutes.

UNICEF Child protection 29 July 2003

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These children are very young. The ages start at five, six, or seven years. The other very big problem is mainly girls, [older girls] such as 11 or 12 year olds. They are forced into sexual exploitation and prostitution. That's a very big problem in the Balkans, and with Italy, as well.
Question: How does the system work? How are children separated from their parents?
Helga Kuhn: You have to understand this as an international network of traffickers. This network has middlemen in the countries of origin. Sometimes they even know the families they are contacting before, and they are promising: "Your child will have a good future when the child is going abroad. It will be better for him or her when he or she goes abroad because he or she earns some money and will send money back to you, so both sides will profit from this."
These middlemen will bring the children to the border, and at the border other persons are waiting for the children and misusing them for hard labor or sexual exploitation.
Question: Where are children most at risk?
Helga Kuhn: The greatest risk is there where the families and the children are the poorest. The poorest countries are the [main] countries of origin. Albania, Moldova, and Romania are poor countries, but we have other countries as well where we see the problem growing bigger and bigger. You can say that nearly all the states of the former Soviet Union are such high-risk countries. For example, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia itself.

Mark Baker Radio Free Europe 12 June 2003

{1. 'trafficking' statistics are a one-off. the kid gets sold. the counter moves up one. but that kid goes into a life that is every day more soul-killing, every day a crime, every minute of that kid's life is a crime. the numbers don't really tell the tale.
2. 'nearly all the states of the former Soviet Union'. so capitalism triumphed all over those guys didn't it? and bears no responsibility for the outcome does it? collateral damage from the Cold War.}