DHAKA, Nov 7 (AFP) - A lack of political will among governments in South Asia is responsible for the continuing commercial sexual exploitation of children, the United Nations and experts said Wednesday.
"Poverty is a problem, but there are now no lack of resources to deal with the issue of children exploited sexually for commercial purposes," said Ashok Nigam, a Nepal-based UN expert.
"It is the lack of political will of South Asian governments and also a lack of proper prioritisation of the issue that has allowed such exploitation to go on."
He was speaking at a South Asia consultation meeting in Dhaka for the 2nd World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children.
The three-day meeting, which brought together experts from UN bodies and Bangladesh, was aimed at chalking out a regional strategy to present at the Second World Congress in Japan in December, the organisers said.
Delegates to the meeting committed themselves to combatting the commercial sexual exploitation of children and child sexual abuse -- both within and outside the family.
A strategy statement said governments had to collaborate with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), childrens' groups, the media and other international organisations in the fight against abuse.
"We call upon governments to set targets and allocate specific additional resources, beyond those allocated to basic social services and welfare programmes," the statement added.
UNICEF Deputy Regional Director for South Asia, Waheed Hassan, said the strategy had to include South Asian countries working together to rescue and reintegrate affected children back into their communities.
Abuse takes the form of child prostitution, sex tourism and pornography involving children as young as 13, the statement noted.
"But the average age is falling," it added.
Apart from long-term physical and mental health problems, the region's abused children were also at great risk of contracting HIV, it said.
In domestic sexual exploitation, men were the main culprits, but boys and even women were also sometimes abusers, it added.
"Poverty, globalisation, social and gender discrimination, weak legislative and judicial implementations are among the important factors that lead to child sex abuse commercially in South Asia," the statement said.
Bangladesh had "very good" laws to tackle the crimes against children, but they needed to be properly implemented and enforced, one expert pointed out.
For example hundreds of children continued to be illegally smuggled from Bangladesh to neighbouring India and beyond, social workers said.
Many eventually end up in the United Arab Emirates, where they are used as camel jockeys.
Afsan Chowdhury, a member of a local NGO called "Breaking the silence" which fights child sex abuse, said 10 to 15 percent of children in any society were victims of domestic or commercial sexual exploitation.
"The commercial side is generally linked to the children of sex workers themselves with some forced into the situation, but those who are victims of domestic exploitation are like slaves with their rights snatched away."
011107
AF011119
Copyright © AFP or Agence France-Presse, 2001 - All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission.. http://www.afp.com/
ÆGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, the National Library of Medicine, and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2001. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1990, 2001 - ÆGiS. ÆGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on ÆGIS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of ÆGIS and the Sisters of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, or the party credited as the provider of the content.
