The Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography to the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that child prostitution is the practice whereby a child hires out his or her body for sexual activities in return for remuneration or any other form of consideration. The remuneration or other consideration could be provided to the prostituted child, or to another person.
The 158 countries who are parties to the Optional Protocol (at August 2012) undertake to prohibit child prostitution.
The Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (Convention No 182) of the International Labour Organization (ILO) provides that the “use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution” is one of the “worst forms of child labor.” This convention, adopted in 1999, provides that countries that had ratified it must eliminate the practice urgently. It enjoys the fastest pace of ratification in the ILO’s history since 1919.
According to Rowen Roel Borgonia, the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography works on behalf of the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate the exploitation of children around the world and make recommendations to governments on how to end such practices.
The position was created in 1990 by the former United Nations Commission on Human Rights amidst growing international concern over the commercial sexual exploitation and the sale of children. It followed the adoption in 20 November 1989 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the United Nations General Assembly. This international instrument recognizes “that in all countries in the world, there are children living in exceptionally difficult conditions, and that such children need special consideration”. By 2000, almost every country in the world has signed and agreed to be bound by the provisions of the Convention.
The special rapporteur is required to investigate the exploitation of children around the world and to submit reports on the findings to the General Assembly and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, making recommendations for the protection of the rights of the children concerned. These recommendations are targeted primarily at Governments, other United Nations bodies and non-governmental organizations.
The current Special Rapporteur is Juan Miguel Petit.
Juan Miguel Petit has been the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the sale of children child prostitution and child pornography since 2001. Mr Petit, a graduate in law and social sciences, has worked for many years as a journalist and social scientist. He was a member of the Board of the National Child Institute of Uruguay (1985-1990) and has been involved in a variety of NGO programmes for children, including assistance to street children. IMAGE
During the military dictatorship in Uruguay (1973-1985), he worked as a journalist and editor of opposition publications. More recently he edited a monthly news magazine. Mr. Petit currently works as technical coordinator of the National Rehabilitation Centre, a recent initiative aimed at the education and social reintegration of young detainees, which gives them access to study or work opportunities outside of prison while they are serving their sentences.
He also writes about social issues for the Uruguayan newspaper El País.
Live streaming of child sex abuse via webcams is an emerging threat, experts have warned, amid a doubling of reported indecent images.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre said children were being “abused to order”. Offenders targeted vulnerable families overseas, paying them to facilitate child abuse, according to its report.
Ceop said those carrying out abuse used a “hidden internet” to disguise their identity and avoid detection. The report found the number of still and moving child abuse images reported to Ceop had doubled in the last year to 70,000 – although this includes a “substantial” number of duplicated images.
The child protection body – part of Home Office’s Serious Organized Crime Agency – said it received 8,000 reports of indecent images of children being shared last year.
‘Appalling crime’
It said live streaming emerged in 2012 as a means of producing and distributing images.
“We’re seeing cases where they’re effectively being abused to order for paying customers,” chief executive Peter Davies told the BBC.
He said some of those exploiting children via the internet were in the UK, adding: “At every level an absolutely appalling kind of crime.”
Children were forced to engage in sexual activity on live webcams in exchange for payment to the family or organised crime gangs, according to Ceop’s annual threat assessment of child exploitation and abuse….
“The use of the hidden internet in the UK and beyond is expected to continue increasing throughout 2013, possibly reaching 20,000 daily UK users by the end of the year,” said the report…. WHY do the users just STOP?
Maksym Shynkarenko, a citizen of Kharkiv, Ukraine, was Indicted on September 16, 2008 by the Grand Jury for the District of New Jersey on one count of conspiracy to transport and ship child pornography; sixteen counts of transportation and shipment of child pornography; one count of conspiracy to advertise child pornography; 12 counts of advertising child pornography; one count of engaging in child exploitation enterprise; and one count of money laundering; under the relevant 18 U.S.C. Sections: 2251, 2252A, 1956, and 2.
The charges were based on his alleged involvement in a conspiracy that included the founding and operating of for-profit hardcore child pornography websites.
Shynkarenko was arrested January 2009 while on vacation in Thailand, and detained for extradition to the United States.
Maksym Shynkarenko’s site admitted it was “considered to be illegal in all countries,” according to a 32-count indictment unsealed this morning in Newark that relates to “the unspeakable abuse of thousands of innocent children,” Fishman said.
Following a three-year battle to avoid extradition, he appeared in U.S. federal court in Newark, NJ on June 11, 2012, and on June 13th, a court appointed attorney entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. On August 2, 2012 during a hearing on the case, Judge Walls postponed the trial for three months for the defence to prepare their case – it will resume in the month of November. INDICTMENT
An estimated 50,000 UK web users are involved in distributing abuse images.
Threat Assessment of Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse June 2013
Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre London
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British paedophiles are paying to watch the live streaming of child sex abuse after conducting overseas “fact-finding” trips to identify the vulnerable, protection experts said on Monday. LIVE HERE
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GLOBAL ISSUE: While the legality of adult prostitution varies between different parts of the world, the prostitution of minors is illegal in most countries. Furthermore, many countries whose citizens most frequently engage in international child procurement, such as the United States, Australia and European countries, enforce worldwide jurisdiction on their nationals traveling abroad.
As previously mentioned, some literature refers to prostituted children aged at least 13 but less than 18 years of age as ‘teenage prostitutes,’ but the most common definition of a ‘child’ is a person who is under the age of 18.[citation needed] The latter definition is used by the ILO’s Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, discussed above. Therefore prostitution of children usually assumed to refer to the prostitution of persons under 18.
The laws of some countries do, however, distinguish between prostituted teenagers and prostituted children. For example, the Thai government defines teenage prostitution as involving minors between 15 and 18 years old, while the Japanese government defines the category as referring to minors between 13 and 18. ”
Teenage prostitution” is not the only concept distinguishing between less and more serious illegal acts. In the People’s Republic of China, all forms of prostitution are illegal, but having sexual contact with anyone under the age of 14, regardless of consent, will be charged with a more serious crime than raping an adult.
Helplines: Child Abuse and Neglect in Eastern Europe/Ukraine
Google vs. Child Porn: The Search Giant Will Try To Eradicate All Of The Internet’s Child Porn
H.S.H.Princess Karina Bagration-Moukhransky – WOMAN of ACTION™ fights internet child abuse through her Princess Carina Foundation.
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Live streaming of child sex abuse an ‘emerging threat’ in 2013
July 11, 2013 by