By Amy Lieberman
16 October 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Though improvements have been made on curbing rates of child marriage and female genital mutilation in recent years, substantial progress remains to be seen on child labor and trafficking, according to UNICEF’s 2009 report card, “Progress for Children: A Report Card on Child Protection.”
It is the first document of its kind to focus on international child protection from violence, exploitation, trafficking, and abuse. Officials hope that the document may be able to shed more light on these disturbing, yet pervasive trends, and encourage action to combat them.
Data on sexual exploitation and abuse, as well as forced trafficking and migration, remains “difficult to obtain,” the report says, but with circulation of materials like these, governments are becoming more aware of the problem, and what they must specifically do to prevent it.
“It’s the first time we have come out with a report like this on child protection, but it’s an area we have been working on for about 20 years,” Susan Bissell, chief of UNICEF’s child protection unit, told MediaGlobal. “It’s pretty exciting, that when people say it is so difficult to collect data on these kinds of phenomena, but we have been able to collect data and monitor the situation.”
“That level of monitoring allows governments to put in the mechanisms they need to make sure that all children are protected from abuse and neglect… We have gotten so much better at collecting data, but it is still one of those difficult areas. We are making progress, but it still isn’t enough.”
One hundred and fifty million children, aged five to 14, are engaged in child labor on a global scale, according to UNICEF. Two-thirds of this labor is estimated to occur in agricultural sectors, says the International Labour Organization.
Eastern and Southern Africa demonstrate the highest percentages of children involved in labor—36 percent—with West and Central Africa, as well as sub-Saharan Africa, trailing slightly behind with 35 percent of their children subjected to child labor.
On a larger scale, approximately 30 percent of children in least developed countries are engaged in child labor.
Gaining a firm conception of how many children are subjected to labor, though, is a trying affair, given the secrecy surrounding children’s illegal participation in workforces. Equally difficult is acquiring firm numbers on how many children are trafficked, either within their own nations or across borders, each year.
A common calculation is the U.S. Government’s estimate that 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficking across international borders annually. It is estimated that one-sixth to one-half of these people are children. Yet questions remain about this figure, according to the UNICEF report, due to “methodological weakness of analyses, data gaps and numerical discrepancies.”
One hundred and twenty-five nations—out of the 155 countries the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime studied in regards to trafficking—have anti-trafficking legislation, as of November 2008. Yet implementation of trafficking laws still has gaps, as evidenced by only 73 of those nations having recorded trafficking convictions.
That’s part of the reason why UNICEF is focusing on “capacity building,” and ensuring that governments have the necessary tools to address and eradicate trafficking and forced labor, according to Susu Thatun, UNICEF’s child protection specialist on trafficking and migration.
“When we are combating any number of issues, in terms of trafficking and sexual exploitation or child neglect, we have to ensure that we have the capacity to address those issues,” Thatun explained to MediaGlobal. “One of the things that we do is we have manuals, which could be used by social workers or law enforcement workers or others.”
UNICEF, along with the International Labour Organization and the Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking, launched the “Training manual to fight trafficking in children in labor, sexual and other forms of exploitation” in mid-September. It’s one of the few documents that facilitate training for officials dealing with trafficking and labor issues. It also addresses the need for government participation at a policy and outreach level.
And last week, UNICEF, along with a host of other UN agencies and regional organizations, launched a Framework for Action, calling for further implementation of the 2000 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. Thatun said the announcement was well received and that the Framework should assist member states in addressing and confronting this issue.
“This is a tool to help member states with step-by-step implementation of the Trafficking Protocol,” Thatun explained. “I think it offers very down to earth and practical guidance.”
UNICEF identifies five out of the seven main trafficking-affected regions in its report, highlighting West and Central Africa, South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, East Asia and the Pacific, and Eastern and Southern Africa as problematic spheres.
Bissell said public feedback on the report has been encouraging and positive. She noted one highlighted nation in Eastern Europe, which says the report enabled them to “discuss child labor and trafficking,” and encouraged them to adopt “systematic house-to-house surveys to collect data that is pretty reliable.”
“It’s proving to be a very important advocacy tool,” Bissell continued, noting that the report may also serve as instrumental in fundraising, “demonstrating the magnitude of the challenges that we face.”
