Sexual Exploitation of children

In this article, our intern Renuka expresses her views on the topic of 'Sexual exploitation of children.'

Sexual Exploitation is the one of the major issues that still prevails and is crumbling the lives of many children globally. According to World Health Organization(WHO), ‘the involvement of a child in sexual activity that he or she does not fully comprehend, is unable to give informed consent to , or for which the child is not developmentally prepared and cannot give consent, or that violate the laws or social taboos of society’ can be defined as Child Sexual Abuse. Sexual exploitation can be defined as the act of trafficking children by luring them through work, money etc and exploiting them sexually, through forcing them to do prostitution, forcing them into pornography or turning them into sex slaves. It involves having sexual conversations, posting or sharing explicit images, even the image of children themselves.

Who are children?

Any person under the age of 18 is considered to be a child.

Reasons for the prevailing of this crime can be the result of poverty, socio-economic

backgrounds and even the demands for the children by pedophiles, traffickers as they are more vulnerable and easy targets and can easily be forced to do things that are unimaginable.

Child Sexual Exploitation in India:

In India, sexual exploitation is a hidden problem; many reports suggest that almost half of the children that are sexually exploited are between the ages 11-14. Though there are many acts and laws are made to protect children from sexual exploitation, such as POCSO act, right to education, DPSP directing to take care children and provide them better life, but still even today, children in India are vulnerable to these types of exploitations, few reasons for this scenario include:

 1. The perpetrators are mostly the known people, relatives, friends, neighbors

 2. Female infanticide

 3. Girls are more vulnerable to the sexual abuse

 4. Sexual exploitation against boys are not taken seriously, even though the cases are very high.

 5. Blaming victims rather than culprits

 6. Absence of sex education to children, not explaining about good touch, bad touch, privacy.

What can be done to address this problem?

 Stringent implementation of POCSO acts and other child protection acts.

 Introducing sex education in schools

Awareness to parents to encourage them to complaint against the culprits.

 Stringent laws and guidelines to address cyber bullying

Authored by- Renuka ( Intern for month of February 2021)

College- TISS, Hyderabad