Trafficking of children

Trafficking of children is a form of human trafficking: Violence and threats are used to recruit them, or they are kidnapped. Sometimes people also use promises to make them believe things that later turn out to not be true. This is called deception. They are then trafficked. There are estimates, that up to 400,000 children are trafficked from one country to another (across borders). There are no reliable figures or estimates of the trafficking of children within the same country. Most cases that are reported in the media are in connection with forced prostitution. It is difficult to get exact numbers, but the International Labour Organization estimated that about 1.2 million children are trafficked per year.^[1]

There is a convention about suppressing the trade of women and children, of 1921. It says that the trafficking of children should be a punishable offense. Like human trafficking, trafficking of children is a crime^[2]

The trafficing of children happens for different reasons:

• Forced labor. This usually is child labor. It often is dangerous, and exhausting, In many cases, this prevents the child from getting an education
• Sexual explotation.
  • Forcing them to offer sexual services, in exhange for money, or some goods, or favours. This is commonly called child prostitution
  • The sex trade.
  • Child sex tourism
  • Forcing them to produce child pronography.
  • Forcing them to perform sex shows before an audience. These shows may be public or private.
• Using them as child soldiers
• Children in the drug trade. Threy are often used as carriers of drugs. or as dealers. Very often they are paid 'in drugs'. This means they become addicted and are even more vulnerable
• Adoption - very often, children are taken from orphanages, to be adopted abroad. Parents are often tricked or forced to reliquish custody of their children
• Medical research
• Child marriage
• Forced begging