INTRODUCTION Legally, Prostitution is the sale of sexual services. The services may consist of any sexual acts, including those which do not involve copulation. While payment may be any nonsexual consideration, most commonly it is the form of “money”. Prostitution is when money is the critical motivation for some activity. The average person in corporatocracy is in fact a prostitute. Most people do the jobs they do only for the money, not because they actually enjoy “the work” enough to continue doing it even without a monetary reward.
You can verify this by asking them if they’d still do what they now do as “work”, if they’d just won or inherited a billion dollars, and no longer had to work for a living. This is also a reminder that what anyone does for a living is not who they are, which may also remind us that we are spirits incarnate in bodies. Prostitution is a word which applies to far more circumstances than the usual legal definition, where the meaning is focused only upon “whoring”.
The English language definition “the act, or an instance of, offering or devoting one’s talent to an unworthy use or cause”, is far more akin in meaning to the word “pollution” than to “whoring”. Ask any boy or girl what they want to be when they grow up, and my guess is that the majority of them will not respond: “I want to be a minimum wage laborer”, yet most of them will start out in some such job, prostituting their truth, their desires, and their true choices, just to obtain a periodic paycheck. You can pretty well bet that, they are prostituting, even though it is probable that they have never “whored”, (sold sex for money).
On the other hand, selling sex for money, or “whoring” can be done in truth and appropriateness, through very selective choice of customers. There are quite a few who whore who is not prostitutes, for they actually love what they do, and would continue to engage in promiscuous sex even without the monetary reward. One who whores, who does not prostitute themselves, is one who allows themselves to be monetarily rewarded in addition to a fundamentally appropriate choice of having sex with someone she would have sex with even without monetary reward.
Yes, it is true that much whoring is prostitution, but it is essential to understand, that while most people and most law fails to make this distinction, for it is nearly impossible to judge externally, that there truly is a distinction, and only the one whoring can know in the moment, whether she is for a given session, “whoring” or “prostituting”. In many cases a fancy name for a legal whore is “wife”. Many women, disembowel by the patriarchal system, seek to have their survival needs (money) met by one consistent trick (named “husband”).
The essential purpose of modern patriarchal religions and society is to force this system of disempowerment upon the individual female and to allow her re-empowerment only via marriage (monogamous prostitution), for the overriding purpose of men being able to totally control women and the propagations of their DNA. Sacred Sex is a concept much suppressed in what passes for current “culture”. Prostitution in the Philippines is not just a festering moral problem, but is now a grave social crisis which might spiral out of control with far-reaching health, criminal and other negative repercussions if unchecked.
As our politicos thoughtlessly imperil our economic development with their massive corruption and vicious wars, more and more impoverished young people are falling prey to the dangerous lure of the sex-for-pay trade and possible exploitation by criminals. Prostituted persons, according to a 1998 International Labor Organization study in 1998, numbered about 400,000 to 500,000. Most of them were adult women, but there were also male, transvestite and child prostitutes, both girls and boys. The number of child prostitutes then was estimated to be around 75,000.
Child prostitutes often live perilously and are exploited by crime gangs, pimps and even drug pushers. That 1998 study quoted a former labor undersecretary, Rene Ofreneo, who revealed that the number of prostituted persons in the Philippines was then actually about the size of the country’s manufacturing workforce. With the weakening of the Philippine economy in recent years, how much have these numbers increased? In 1998, a study claimed that 150,000 Filipino women were trafficked into prostitution in Japan.
It is tragic that this was allowed to happen, even as the modern-day Japanese government has refused to officially pay reparations to the estimated 80,000 to 200,000 so-called “comfort women” who were kidnapped – and sexually exploited by Japanese soldiers – during World War II from Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, China and Malaysia. The Philippines ranked fourth among nine nations with the most number of children trafficked for prostitution, according to a report by the Consortium against Trafficking of Children and Women for Sexual Exploitation (Catch-Wise).
The Catch-Wise report was presented this year during the international conference on sexual exploitations and it stated that the Philippines is not only the source of 60,000 to 100,000 children for prostitution, but we are now also a transit and destination country for internationally trafficked persons. Data provided by the International Labor Organization also showed that two to 14 percent of the gross domestic product of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand comes from sex tourism. Prostitution in various regions
Prostitution catering to local customers is widespread, if low-key, across much of the country. However, media attention tends to focus on those areas catering to sex tourism, primarily through bars staffed by bargirls. One of the cities where there is a high incidence of such prostitution is Pasay City , with the customers usually foreign businessmen from East Asian and Western nations. Prostitution in Olongapo City and Angeles City was highly prominent during the time of the U. S. military bases called Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Base, respectively.
When Mount Pinatubo, a volcano, erupted in 1991, it destroyed most of Clark Air Base and the US closed it down in 1992. Most of the associated prostitution trade closed with it, but when the mayor of Manila, Alfredo Lim, closed down the sex industry area of Ermita in Manila during his first term, many of the businesses moved to Angeles, finding a new customer base among sex tourists. Other tourist areas such as Cebu have also developed a high profile prostitution industry. Violence and coercion against prostitutes
For information about Human Trafficking and Child Prostitution in the Philippines please see Human trafficking in the Philippines Surveys of women working as masseuses indicated that 34 percent of them explained their choice of work as necessary to support poor parents, 8 percent to support siblings and 28 percent to support husbands or boyfriends. More than 20 percent said the job was well paid, but only 2 percent said it was easy work and only 2 percent claimed to enjoy the work. Over a third reported that hey had been subject to violence or harassment, most commonly from the police, but also from city officials and gangsters. A survey conducted by the International Labor Organization revealed that in the experience of most of the women surveyed, prostitution is one of the most alienating forms of labor. Over 50 percent of the women surveyed in Philippine massage parlors said they carried out their work “with a heavy heart,” and 20 percent said they were “conscience-stricken because they still considered sex with customers a sin. Interviews with Philippine bar girls revealed that more than half of them felt “nothing” when they had sex with a client, the remainder said the transactions saddened them. Commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) is a form of child labor. A Convention was drawn up after the first World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation held in Stockholm in 1996. CSEC was defined in the declaration adopted at this congress as ‘sexual abuse by the adult and remuneration in cash or kind to the child or a third person or persons. The child is treated as a sexual object and as a commercial object. CSEC includes the prostitution; child pornography; and other forms of transactional sex where a child engages in sexual activities to have key needs fulfilled, such as food, shelter or access to education. It includes forms of transactional sex where the sexual abuse of children is not stopped or reported by household members, due to benefits derived by the household from the perpetrator. CSEC also potentially includes arranged marriages involving children under the age of 18 years, where the child has not freely consented to marriage and where the child is sexually abused.
Prostitution of children under the age of 18 years, child pornography and the (often related) sale and trafficking of children are often considered to be crimes of violence against children. They are considered to be forms of economic exploitation akin to forced labor or slavery. Such children often suffer irreparable damage to their physical and mental health. They face early pregnancy and risk sexually transmitted diseases, particularly AIDS. They are often inadequately protected by the law and may be treated as criminals. Child trafficking and CSEC sometimes overlap.
On the one hand, children who are trafficked are often trafficked for the purposes of CSEC. However, not all trafficked children are trafficked for these purposes. Further, even if some of the children trafficked for other forms of work are subsequently sexually abused at work; this does not necessarily constitute CSEC. On the other hand, by no means all children involved in CSEC have been trafficked. Many are involved in CSEC near their homes. CSEC is also part of, but distinct from, child abuse, or even child sexual abuse. Child rape, for example, will not usually constitute CSEC. Neither will domestic violence.
Although CSEC is considered as child labor, and indeed one of the Worst Forms of Child Labor, in terms of international conventions, in legislation, policy and programmatic terms, CSEC is often treated as a form of child abuse or a crime. Causes The causes of CSEC are complex and patterns differ among countries and regions. For example, in some areas the commercial sexual exploitation of children is clearly related to foreign child sex tourism, in others it is associated with the local demand. In most countries, girls represent 80 to 90% of the victims, although in some places boys predominate.
As is the case for other worst forms of child labor, severe poverty, the possibility of relatively high earnings, low value attached to education, family dysfunction, a cultural obligation to help support the family or the need to earn money to simply survive are all factors that make children vulnerable to CSEC. There are other non-economic factors that also push children into commercial sexual exploitation. Children who are at greatest risk of becoming victims of CSEC are those that have previously experienced physical or sexual abuse.
A family environment of little protection, where caregivers are absent or where there is a high level of violence or alcohol or drug consumption, induces boys and girls to run away from home making them highly susceptible to abuse Gender discrimination and low educational levels of caregivers are also risk factors. Children with extreme poverty and marginalized families in coastal areas also becoming victims of CSEC On the demand side, certain factors can aggravate the problem. For example, sex tourists are a source of demand for prostitution.
The presence of military troops or of large public works may also create demand. Client preferences for young children, particularly in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, pull in additional children. Additionally, the expansion of the Internet has facilitated the growth of child pornography. Experience has shown that certain socio-economic characteristics, such as population density, concentration of night entertainment (bars and discos), high poverty and unemployment levels, movement of people, and access to highways, ports, or borders are also associated with CSEC.
Observations on CSEC from recent IPEC Rapid Assessments While it is practically impossible to know the true extent of the problem, given its illegal nature, International Labor Organization (ILO) global child labor figures for the year 2003 estimate that there are as many as 1. 8 million children exploited in prostitution or pornography worldwide. The Rapid Assessment survey, developed by the ILO’s International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) and UNICEF, relies on interviews and other, mainly qualitative, techniques, to provide a picture of a specific activity in a limited geographic area.
It is a highly useful tool for collecting information on the worst forms of child labour, like CSEC, that is difficult to capture with standard quantitative surveys. •In Sri Lanka, children often become the prey of sexual exploiters through friends and relatives. The prevalence of boys in prostitution here is strongly related to foreign tourism. •An estimated 12,000 Nepalese children, mainly girls, are trafficked for sexual commercial exploitation each year within Nepal or to brothels in India and other countries. Some 84 % of girls in prostitution interviewed in Tanzania reported having been battered, raped or tortured by police officers and sungu sungu (local community guards). At least 60% had no permanent place to live. Some of these girls started out as child domestic workers. •UNICEF estimates that there are 60,000 child prostitutes in the Philippines and many of the 200 brothels in the notorious Angeles City offer children for sex. •In El Salvador, one-third of the sexually exploited children between 14 and 17 years of age are boys.
The median age for entering into prostitution among all children interviewed was 13 years. They worked on average five days per week, although nearly 10% reported that they worked seven days a week. •In Vietnam, family poverty, low family education and family dysfunction were found to be primary causes for CSEC. Sixteen per cent of the children interviewed were illiterate, 38 % had only primary-level schooling. Sixty-six per cent said that tuition and school fees were beyond the means of their families.
The Philippines is recognized as one of the countries with the highest number of children involved in prostitution. Children are forced to work up to 20 hours a day and are expected to service as many as 100 customers each week. A 2005 estimate, states that it is estimated 150,000 girls work as prostitutes, some as young as six years old. An Australian Government and Australian Law Reform Commission investigation into prostitution in the Philippines states, “Girls are quickly forced into prostitution”. “Corruption in the police force and among politicians is reported to be prevalent”.
A survey conducted by the International Labor Organization] reveals that in the experience of most of the women surveyed, prostitution is one of the most alienating forms of labor. Over 50 percent of the women surveyed in Philippine massage parlors’ said they carried out their work “with a heavy heart,” and 20 percent said they were “conscience stricken because they still considered sex with customers a sin. ” Interviews with Philippine bar girls revealed that more than half of them felt “nothing” when they had sex with a client; the remainder said the transactions saddened them.
Surveys of women working as masseuses indicated that 34 per cent of them explained their choice of work as necessary to support poor parents, 8 per cent to support siblings and 28 per cent to support husbands or boyfriends. More than 20 per cent said the job was well paid, but only 2 per cent said it was easy work and only 2 per cent claimed to enjoy the work. Over a third reported that they had been subject to violence or harassment, most commonly from the police but also from city officials and gangsters. Sex Slavery in Different Parts of the Country
Puerto Galera is a notorious pedophile sex resort on Mindoro Island three hours south of Manila. Children as young as six to twelve years have been trafficked to foreign pedophiles. Subic Bay has had a long history of sex slavery, especially the trafficking of children. In 1988 a Naval Investigative undercover operation based in Subic Bay were offered children for sex as young as 4, 6, 12 and 13 years of age. Thanks to the hard work of a number of welfare groups in the area, many of those involved in the sex slavery of children have been brought to justice in the courts.
During the peak of the US Naval Base in Subic there was an estimated 16,000 women and children trapped in the sex slavery trade. The notorious Angeles city is the center of the child sex slavery trade in the Philippines and is a worldwide destination for Pedophiles. Children are trafficked by organized crime syndicates in Angeles. The extent, horrors and brutality of the child sex slavery trade in Angeles is so bad it has brought International media attention and condemnation from around the world. The behind Prostitution
Those involved in the sex slavery trade are often protected by politicians, law enforcement and organized crime. In May 2006, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) rescued 33 young women from a prostitution den in Makati City. Microsoft has awarded over US$1 million through its Unlimited Potential grants to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) across six Asian countries. The latest round of grants will deliver IT training courses specifically for people in human-trafficking hot spots across the region.
In June 2006, the United States removed Philippines from the Tier 3 watch list for human trafficking. Revised Penal Code Article 202 Vagrants and prostitutes; penalty. — The following are vagrants: 1. Any person having no apparent means of subsistence, who has the physical ability to work and who neglects to apply himself or herself to some lawful calling; 2. Any person found loitering about public or semi-public buildings or places or trampling or wandering about the country or the streets without visible means of support; 3.
Any idle or dissolute person who ledges in houses of ill fame; ruffians or pimps and those who habitually associate with prostitutes; 4. Any person who, not being included in the provisions of other articles of this Code, shall be found loitering in any inhabited or uninhabited place belonging to another without any lawful or justifiable purpose; 5. Prostitutes. For the purposes of this article, women who, for money or profit, habitually indulge in sexual intercourse or lascivious conduct are deemed to be prostitutes.
Any person found guilty of any of the offenses covered by this articles shall be punished by arresto menor or a fine not exceeding 200 pesos, and in case of recidivism, by arresto mayor in its medium period to prison correctional in its minimum period or a fine ranging from 200 to 2,000 pesos, or both, in the discretion of the court. Revised Penal Code Article 341 Penal Code article 341 imposes a penalty to any person who “shall engage in the business or shall profit by prostitution or shall enlist the services of any other person for the purpose of prostitution. ” Republic Act 9208
Section 4 of Republic Act 9208, otherwise known as the “Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003,” deems it unlawful for any person, natural or juridical, to commit any of the following acts: (a) To recruit, transport, transfer, harbor, provide, or receive a person by any means, including those done under the pretext of domestic or overseas employment or training or apprenticeship, for the purpose of prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage; (b) To introduce or match for money, profit, or material, economic or other consideration, any person or, as provided for under Republic Act No. 955, any Filipino women to a foreign national, for marriage for the purpose of acquiring, buying, offering, selling or trading him/her to engage in prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage; (c) To offer or contract marriage, real or simulated, for the purpose of acquiring, buying, offering, selling, or trading them to engage in prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor or slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage; (d) To undertake or organize tours and travel plans consisting of tourism packages or activities for the purpose of utilizing and offering persons for prostitution, pornography or sexual exploitation; (e) To maintain or hire a person to engage in prostitution or pornography; (f) To adopt or facilitate the adoption of persons for the purpose of prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage; (g) To recruit, hire, adopt, transport or abduct a person, by means of threat or use of force, fraud deceit, violence, coercion, or intimidation for the purpose of removal or sale of organs of said person; and (h) To recruit, transport or adopt a child to engage in armed activities in the Philippines or abroad.
Republic Act 7610 – Special Protection of Children Against Child Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act Sec. 5. Child Prostitution and Other Sexual Abuse. – Children, whether male or female, who for money, profit, or any other consideration or due to the coercion or influence of any adult, syndicate or group, indulge in sexual intercourse or lascivious conduct, are deemed to be children exploited in prostitution and other sexual abuse. The penalty of reclusion temporal in its medium period to reclusion perpetua shall be imposed upon the following: (a) Those that engage in or promote, facilitate or induce child prostitution which include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) Acting as a procurer of a child prostitute; 2) Inducing a person to be a client of a child prostitute by means of written or oral advertisements or other similar means; (3) Taking advantage of influence or relationship to procure a child as prostitute; (4) Threatening or using violence towards a child to engage him as a prostitute; or (5) Giving monetary consideration goods or other pecuniary benefit to a child with intent to engage such child in prostitution. (b) Those who commit the act of sexual intercourse of lascivious conduct with a child exploited in prostitution or subject to other sexual abuse; Provided, That when the victims is under twelve (12) years of age, the perpetrators shall be prosecuted under Article 335, paragraph 3, for rape and Article 336 of Act No. 815, as amended, the Revised Penal Code, for rape or lascivious conduct, as the case may be: Provided, That the penalty for lascivious conduct when the victim is under twelve (12) years of age shall be reclusion temporal in its medium period; and (c) Those who derive profit or advantage there from, whether as manager or owner of the establishment where the prostitution takes place, or of the sauna, disco, bar, resort, place of entertainment or establishment serving as a cover or which engages in prostitution in addition to the activity for which the license has been issued to said establishment. Sec. 6. Attempt To Commit Child Prostitution. – There is an attempt to commit child prostitution under Section 5, paragraph (a) hereof when any person who, not being a relative of a child, is found alone with the said child inside the room or cubicle of a house, an inn, hotel, motel, pension house, apartelle or other similar establishments, vessel, vehicle or any other hidden or secluded area under circumstances which would lead a reasonable person to believe that the child is about to be exploited in prostitution and other sexual abuse. There is also an ttempt to commit child prostitution, under paragraph (b) of Section 5 hereof when any person is receiving services from a child in a sauna parlor or bath, massage clinic, health club and other similar establishments. A penalty lower by two (2) degrees than that prescribed for the consummated felony under Section 5 hereof shall be imposed upon the principals of the attempt to commit the crime of child prostitution under this Act, or, in the proper case, under the Revised Penal Code. Republic Act 6955 – Mail Order Brides RA 6955 basically declares as unlawful “the practice of matching Filipino women for marriage to foreign nationals on a mail order basis. “
Prostitution of children Prostitution of children refers to the use of children as prostitutes. The definition of a “child prostitute” can vary depending on who is using the term. Under many laws a child is defined as anyone under the age of 18. The Optional protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography to the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that the prostitution of children or child prostitution is the practice whereby a child is used by others for sexual activities in return for remuneration or any other form of consideration. The remuneration or other consideration could be provided to the child or to another person.
Most generally, the prostitution of children means that a party other than the child benefits from a commercial transaction in which the child is made available for sexual purposes – either an exploiter intermediary (pimp) who controls or oversees the child’s activities for profit, or a child abuser who negotiates an exchange directly with a child in order to receive sexual gratification. The provision of children for sexual purposes may also be a medium of exchange between adults. The Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention, 1999 (Convention No 182) of the International Labor 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 ratifications in the ILO’s history since 1919.
The prostitution of children is seen as forming part of the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), and is sometimes connected to the trafficking of children for sexual purposes, and to child pornography. Child sex tourism also falls within the category of the prostitution of children. The Libertarian Party has historically supported legalizing child prostitution as part of their overall pro-free market, pro-personal freedom philosophy, although they removed the pertinent provisions from their platform in 2006. Terminology Child prostitution is sometimes used to describe the wider concept of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC).
However, child prostitution excludes other identifiable manifestations of CSEC, such as commercial sexual exploitation through child, domestic child labor, and the trafficking of children for sexual purposes. It was the limitations of the term child prostitution that led to the development in the mid-1990s of the term commercial sexual exploitation of children as a more encompassing description of specific forms of sexual trade involving children. Nevertheless, ‘child prostitution’ remains in common usage and is indeed the wording embedded in international instruments of law. Some believe that the terms child prostitution and child prostitute carry problematic connotations.
They claim this is because these terms, on their own, fail to make it clear that children cannot be expected to make an informed choice to prostitute themselves. The act of prostituting a child is often carried out by another party, as stated in the definition provided by the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. However, a number of people who are legally classified as children may, in fact, willingly engage in the practice of prostitution. This has been especially prominent in Japan, where it is not uncommon for teenagers and younger school-girls to sell their services to raise money for expensive clothing and accessories without the assistance of a “pimp”. Causes and context
Children are often pushed by social structures and individual agents into situations in which adults take advantage of their vulnerability and sexually exploit and abuse them. Structure and agency commonly combine to force a child into commercial sex: for example, the prostitution of a child frequently follows from prior sexual abuse, often in the child’s home. The prostitution of children is usually conducted in particular environments, such as brothels, bars and clubs, or homes, or particular streets and areas (usually in socially downtrodden places). Sometimes it is not organized, but often it is, either on a small scale through individual exploiter-pimps or on a larger scale through extensive criminal networks. See organized crime.
Children also engage in prostitution, however, when they exchange sex outside these environments and in return not only for basic needs such as accommodation, food, clothing, or safety, but also for extra pocket money for desired consumer goods otherwise out of their reach. There is a subculture of “pocket money prostitution” in many consumer societies, whereby girls and boys under 18 rent out their sexual services for cash or expensive gifts, or to save up for cars, motorcycles, even college tuition. In Japan it’s called Enjo kosai “sponsored dating”, in Germany “Schulmadchen-Strich/Strichjunge” (school girl street prostitution/boy-hooker). American/Canadian high schools are not exempt from this phenomenon. These teenagers are prostituted in conditions that appear otherwise perfectly normal.
Enjo kosai, the pay-dating practice reported in Japan, is considered a prime example of this. However, this latter practice is by definition voluntary rather than via manipulation. Living and working conditions for children that are prostituted are frequently substandard. Such children are commonly poorly paid or unpaid, kept in unsanitary conditions, denied access to proper medical care, and constantly watched and kept subservient through threat of force. These threats may be physical or psychological in nature. While some sex tourists may use children involved in prostitution, it has been argued that the majority of their ‘clients’ are instead the locals.
Quoting from the back cover of a recent work: The Asian sex trade is often assumed to cater predominantly to foreigners. Sex Slaves turns that belief on its head to show that while western sex tourists have played a vital part in the growth of the industry, the primary customers of Asia’s indentured sex workers and of its child prostitutes are overwhelmingly Asian men. Impact on children Prostitutes may experience a lifetime of recurrent illnesses, such as sexually transmitted diseases, fertility problems, pregnancy complications, malnutrition, tuberculosis and depression. Children involved in the sex trade face new and potentially fatal dangers in light of the spread of HIV and AIDS. Prohibition
While the legality of adult prostitution varies between different parts of the world, the prostitution of minors is illegal in most countries, though these laws may not be enforced. 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 prostitutes between 13 to 17 years of age as ‘teenage prostitutes,’ but the most common definition of a ‘child’ is a person that is under the age of 18. The latter definition is used by the ILO’s Worst Forms of Child Labor 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 teenage prostitutes and the prostitution of younger children. For example, the Thai government defines a teenage prostitute as being between 15 and 18 years old, while the Japanese government defines one as being between 13 and 18. The basis for making this distinction may be that older children are considered legally able to consent to sex, while sex with younger children is automatically rendered unlawful as statutory rape. However, the definitions of teenage prostitution in some countries do not correlate to the relevant age of consent laws.
In thePeople’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. Extent It is very difficult to determine the extent of prostitution of children due to the illegal and hidden nature thereof. Whilst there has been some moral panic and exaggeration of the scale, there is extensive evidence that the practice is widespread globally. In 1992, researcher and expert Ron O’Grady estimated the number of child prostitutes to be 1 million. In 2001, Dr. Richard Estes and Dr. Neil Alan Weiner estimated that in the U. S. , 162,000 U. S. omeless youth are victims of commercial sexual exploitation (CVE) and that 57,800 children in homes (including public housing) are estimated to be victims of CVE. They also estimated that 30% of shelter youth and 70% of homeless youth are victims of CVE in the United States. One third of street-level prostitutes in the U. S. are less 18 years old while fifty percent of off-street prostitutes are less than 18 years old. Off-street prostitution includes massage parlors, strip clubs, and escort services. According to Estes and Weiner, 12 to 14 is the average age of entry into prostitution for girls under 17 years old in the United States while the average age of entry into prostitution is between 11 and 13.
In the Ukraine, a survey conducted by the group “La Strada-Ukraine” in 2001-2003, based on a sample of 106 women being ‘trafficked’ out of Ukraine found that 3% were under 18, and the US State Department reported in 2004 that incidents of minors being trafficked was increasing. In Thailand, NGOs have estimated that up to a third of prostitutes are children under 18. A study by the International Labor Organization on child prostitution in Vietnam reported that incidence of children in prostitution is steadily increasing and children under 18 make up between 5 percent and 20 percent of prostitution depending on the geographical area. In the Philippines, UNICEF estimated that there are 60,000 child prostitutes and many of the 200 brothels in the notorious Angeles City offer children for sex.
ECPAT New Zealand and Stop Demand Foundation have cited in a report “The Nature and Extent of the Sex Industry in New Zealand,” a police survey of the New Zealand sex industry that 210 children under the age of 18 years were identified as selling sex, with three-quarters being concentrated in one Police District. The 1996 report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography estimates that about one million children in Asia alone are victims of the sex trade. According to the International Labor Organization, the problem is especially alarming in Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia and Nepal.
A 2006 report by World Vision Middle East/Eastern Europe funded by the Canadian government and supported by six United Nations agencies and the International Organization for Migration reported that the sexual exploitation of children, child trafficking and sexual violence towards minors is increasing and that Russia is becoming a new destination for child sex tourism. The report adds that some studies claim approximately 20 per cent to 25 per cent of Moscow’s sex workers are minors. In Africa and South Asia, many countries are faced with a rising child prostitution problem and the linkage with tourism is evident. Child prostitution and the trafficking of children for sexual exploitation is also increasing in Europe, North America, Japan and Australia.
In Rio de Janeiro, the City Social Assistance Secretary estimates that there are 223 child prostitutes, both boys and girls. Some are transvestites. The transactions are intermediated by pimps. They charge from 2 reais to 30 reais, which is approximately from 1 US dollar to 15 US dollars. The children are between 10 and 17 years old. In some cases, the families are involved in the prostitution. Solutions Solutions to the child prostitution problems come in many forms – safehouses for children, education and training for the parents, healing of sexual and physical abuse, treatment for substance abuse issues, socioeconomic alternatives for kids who are homeless or in desperately unsafe conditions, and media exposure.
Currently the Mayor of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin, is waging a campaign against child prostitution in her city that includes raising awareness with ads, ordering the city police to develop better ways to assist abused children and increased crackdowns on the adult entertainment industry. Conclusion The fundamental problem of how to conceptualize prostitution—as sin, as crime, as enslavement, as productive work, as disease vector, as social risk profile—and of how to approach it in policy and practice became more acute in the 1980s and 1990s (Davis). The trends toward globalization in communications and the economy, in migrant labor flows, in international “sextourism,” and in the spread of AIDS and other diseases have exposed the inadequacies of traditional, locally focused efforts to understand and to address prostitution (Truong, 1986, 1990).
The conceptual incoherence of sociolegal theories is compounded by the radical complexity of global jurisdictional differences in legislation, in criminal justice policies, and in social consequences. Prostitutes from the most impoverished and disease-afflicted areas of the world walk the streets of the wealthiest countries as “sextourists” flow in the opposite direction. As media panics about disease epidemics and about the sexual exploitation and even enslavement of children as well as adults seize the short attention span of the global public, the dimensions of the problems are rapidly outpacing the authority and even the scope of vision of local and national governments.
International law instruments such as the 1949 UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (only ratified by about one-third of the UN member states as of 1998) are still no more than tentative and rudimentary efforts. Nongovernmental organizations are considerably more in touch with the rapidly changing global facts of prostitution at the beginning of the twenty-first century, but they too suffer from the lack of any shared conception of the problems and they routinely expend their limited resources working at cross-purposes to one another. In few other domains of crime and justice is there a more urgent need for more and more rigorous empirical research on a worldwide scale and for a fundamental theoretical reorientation.
