Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children - Research Paper Example

Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Methodology Commercial sex exploitation of children (CSEC) refers to coercion and violence on children and constitutes a form of forced labor and contemporary slavery. According to World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children definition of the same, it refers to an act of sex abuse by an adult person to a child and a subsequent remuneration which may be in form of cash or kind carried out later. In this case, the child receives the treatment of an object and may take the form of sex tourism, child pornography and child prostitution (UNESCO 12). This is done for the sake of survival and it is sometimes supported by the family members. The methodology therefore used to gather information on this topic will consider the main variables used relative to how the CSEC is carried out in different places. This is important because the situation happens for different reasons in the different places in focus (UNESCO 13). The paper will also analyze date description methods and the variables used to make an evaluation of alternative solutions. The barriers to effective implementation of the policies will be put to focus in equal measure. Apart from New York City (NYC), other places of focus are India, Thailand and Sweden. Variables Used and their Importance Variables bear the definitive value of things that can be changed in a research to comparatively suite situations. In this research, the first variable that was put in practice was the age factor of the participants. This is in view of the definition of the age bracket of people that are considered children (Simic 34). The New York State Office For Children defines the number as generally being under the age of 18 while the United Nations put the specific age bracket involved to between 16 and 18 years. Age as a variable is important since it can be used to get the exact demographic figures of the population involved. The figure would further be divided into race and location of origin so that there would be an exact position of the groups that are most vulnerable. According to Muslim (2008), the period “between” 1982 to 2006 saw the number of arrests of children engaging in the activity as just above 7000. There has been changes in the trend over the years with some years clocking very high marginal values and others clocking low marginal values. This variable is also important in that it helps to make a follow up on the destinations of the victims after attaining 18 years. In comparison with other places, the data will be useful in establishing the differences in the age brackets among different countries for example India, Thailand and Sweden. In NYC for instance, the age of entry into the activity is 12 years according to Rachel Lloyd, founder and member of Girls Education and Mentoring Services (GEMS), a rights group that takes care of the plight of children in the trade (Muslim, Labriola and Michael 76). The second variable that makes the methodology is the sex of the victims. The victims are said to come from different backgrounds and there are different cultural norms. This is a crucial variable in the research. There are a varied number of combinations of both sexes of children on the streets. Reports indicate that the number of all commercial sex workers in California that join the streets for the practice constitute 45% boys (Dunn 45). In partnership with the different child rights groups, there is a reported link between older women looking for young boys and older men looking for very young girls. They are necessarily not said to be pedophiles since they have no care about what they do and what happens to the children. Consideration of this variable is very important since it helps develop a trend that would be created in the coming future if the same trend is to continue. The information to be gained could as well be used to create a link of the causes of the differences in sexes in the industry and the societal response to the created trend (Adelman 9). The third variable is the poverty levels and origin of the children. This is formed from the hypothetical statement that for survival reasons, there is a direct relationship between poverty and prostitution. Poverty in this case is taken as an independent variable and the involved children as the dependent variable (Robinson 51). The study involved the NGOs that had a link with adult individuals who involve in this practice. The information to be collected was to be based on the reasons for the children taking the chance to engage in the acts of prostitution. This equally put into account all the nationals of the NYC state, those who immigrated to the state from within the USA and those who came from overseas nations. With the different groups arranged and more sub-variables created, it was found that this variable in whole has a big role to play in the partitioning of the children who are victims of CSCE (Heckathorn 33). The racial lines that were dominant in all the groups were to create a known response to the hypothesis related to this variable. The importance of this variable is that it would give primary facts about the poverty levels in the areas that had a high child contribution to this practice. From the general look of the arrangement, a prejudiced answer would not be eluded at this point. Most of the children are from economically low regions, can only speak Basic English and those from non-English speaking countries had no idea of the language (Murphy 2). Therefore, the importance of this variable is that it would unearth the underlying causes of all the variations in the presence of the children on the streets. It is also important because it would make an identification of the specific group of children that were at risk of continually being brought to the streets for the exploitation. The third importance of this variable is that, among other reasons, the research would identify economic status as a reason for involvement in the act. The fourth variable would be the source s of information that would be depended on. This being a primary research, there was needed to involve collection of information on historical trends from family groups and organizations. NYC contains a collection of social agencies amongst them GEMS, Safe Horizon, Sexual Assault and Violence Prevention Intervention Program (SAVI). These groups are also complimented by criminal justice agencies such as Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, Queens Legal Aid Society, and United States Attorney’s Office. Besides these, other independent groups also exist in the region such as New York City Department of Youth and Community and many others (Jennifer 09). These groups constitute a very important variable in that they help provide secondary information that would not be found on the ground. The information provided would also be compared to other information collected from the ground for the purposes of accuracy. The above variables form a very important collection of basic foundation materials that would be used to implement the policies to stop such vices. Any policies that would be made later would be based on the findings under these variables and any sub-variable created. They are also important in that they make a communication to the government to create services based on prevention and of target to the areas considered high risk (Rojanapithayakorn 90). Since the CSEC exploiters will be known, there will be a leeway to create a link to help prosecute the perpetrators. Lastly, it will help create communication effectiveness among the stakeholders involved in the practice. Data Description Methods Used The data description methods at this level are those that try to explain the groups of people under given categories. This would help us know the specific information that belies the existence of the groups analyzed. Sid Adelman (2005) states that data provision, interpretation and presentation should be made and presentation done in a way that is understandable by the recipient. The data collected in the context of the research methodology presented in this context contains a mixture of variables as stipulated and for easy understanding, should be presented using objective methods. The data can be interpreted by use of the measures of central tendency such as mean, mode and median. For instance, in NYC, the mean annual arrests of the children in the act of child use are 280 since 1983. This gives an estimate of the number but the actual figures are contained in the agency groups. The median age of those involved in the prostitution is 15 with the oldest being 18 and the youngest being 12 years. This provides a summary of the data in focus. Description of the data can be done by use of measures of variation. The measures of variation are range, variance and standard deviation. For instance, the range of participation in the CSEC is between 12 to 18 years. This is to say that those who are involved have their ages between the brackets given. Standard deviation denotes the distance from the mean. This would help us describe whether there is a high age bracket above the mean or below it (Gwadz 21). The third method that would be used to describe the data on such demographical issues are those that identify the specific position of a data set. These would include percentiles, deciles and quartiles. As was realized, some of the information was presented in percentage form and breaking it down to understandable levels would require that these methods be used. The last method that would be used is that which has an emphasis on exploratory data analysis. These methods include boxplots and five number summaries. These are methods that group data depending on the intended idea and then sample it depending on the conclusion expected (Goodman 17). In use of the methods above, all the data will be fully presented and created into a formidable format for any particular use. Programs in Countries of Focus New York City In NYC, there are agencies that are purely NGOs, government groups headed by different attorneys as has been mentioned before. A focus on GEMS in particular, there is a mission to empower young girls and women between the age brackets of 12-21 and have gone through exploitation of any sexual manner. The program empowers the young women to explore high level resiliency by providing holistic case management to all the victims (Fisher 46). Their activities include peer counseling, crisis and individual counseling and family therapy. Apart from the services provided, GEMS provides protection to women who are at a risk of going through similar experiences again. Many other groups exist as listed above and have similar objectives as GEMS, though they are not the same. India India is one of the countries that are considered to have handicapped implementation measures as far as child abuse and CSEC are concerned (Erickson 39). The Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse (CPHCSA) is a group that is registed and identified by the government to take care of all the problems to take care of all the problems associated with this vice. The group takes to task the plight of victims by providing support for them as they recuperate. It identifies the victims and the violators. The violators are taken to court as well as the victims getting to be treated with the help of funds from this group. Sweden Sweden has for long treated child sex exploitation as a non-issue. End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking in Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) are a group that has been putting pressure on Sweden to act on the vice. The nation has severally been slammed but the little input of this group is bearing its share of fruits since there is a recuperation program mostly funded by the international lobby groups (Weisberg 76). Thailand UNICEF reports state that children account for slightly above 40% of all prostitutes in Thailand. The country through the concerned ministry has formed several groups to prevent child molestation. Such a group is the ‘Stop Sex Trafficking of Children and Young People Campaign’ group. The work of this campaign group is to come up with prevention programs that are community based to stop child molestation through sex and trafficking (Dunn and Kathleen 8). It was noted that Thailand is one of the destinations for children from other parts of the world to do prostitution. The group has also made sure that international standards on legality of a chance to life have been initiated in the country and are therefore functional. The group equally makes sure that the children are given the best recuperation measures when they are already affected by the incidences related to the stated molestation. Barriers to Implementation of Alternative Solutions There are very many issues that are associated with implementation of the solutions and alternative solutions. One of the biggest problems is that there is no corporation between the victims and the authority (Darwin, Charles 56). In NYC, there is always a problem with the victims going as far as retracting their statements when giving witnesses. It becomes absolutely difficult to prosecute them when there is no evidence from the afflicted. Some victims also tell conflicting versions of the same incident and it becomes absolutely hard for the case to go beyond mention. This issue revolves around the idea that most of the victims are subjects of the violators. With the dependence, they are not able to issue the right evidence to the authorities for conviction. Statistical data also reveal that there are organized sex tourism deals and the authorities are unwilling to go to the deeper details of finding the right solution to the problem (Salganik 30). Organized sex tourism in many countries carry out the vice with the knowledge of the government and because of individual benefits that are accrued, there is unwillingness of the officials involved to cooperate. Conclusion CSEC is a sensitive issue that should be addressed at all levels in the society (Clift, Stephen and Simon 42). It affects everyone but the fortunate groups are taking advantage of loopholes in the government systems to advance it. This methodology paper has analyzed the critical points in child sex exploitation and presented a systematic view of the procedural approach to the issue. 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