Child Trafficking: Impacts, Legal Actions, and Recommendations

This report delves into the multifaceted issue of child trafficking, presenting a comprehensive overview of its causes, global prevalence, and devastating impact on victims. The report highlights various factors contributing to child trafficking, including poverty, demand for cheap labor, and exploitation. It presents statistical data from global sources, revealing the scale of the problem and the demographics of those affected. Furthermore, it analyzes case studies to illustrate the real-life experiences of trafficked children and the methods employed by traffickers. The report examines both international and national legal frameworks designed to combat child trafficking, detailing specific laws and protocols. It also discusses the roles of governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in prevention, rescue, and rehabilitation efforts. The report concludes with recommendations for addressing the issue, emphasizing the need for awareness, improved legal enforcement, support for victims, and international collaboration. The report includes relevant references to support the information presented.

ASSIGNMNET NO 2
CHILD TRAFFICKING
1. INTRODUCTION:
Child trafficking is a forcible transportation of children from their
protective environment for the purpose of forced labor, slavery and
exploitation . they are sold for work and even for different purposes .
Men , women and children are all victims of human trafficking but
children are particularly at risk . Trafficking is done internally in
countries , across national borders and even through the continents .
Cheap labor is one of the causes of child trafficking . The demand for
cheap labor is linked with child trafficking especially where the working
conditions are poor. Children are forced into many illegal situations like
using children for transportation of drugs, domestic labor, sexual
exploitation or prostitution, slavery and even somewhere children are
turned into soldiers and even beggars. The children becomes victim of
trafficking in disasters, conflicts and different situation like war. The
groups and mafia’s or traffickers who are the source of it, benefit from
these situations and take the lost children separated from their families.
The children in these circumstances, easily become their pray .Migrants
are also a big target for the traffickers. Even in poor countries some
poor families sell their children for money to the traffickers .
The children who are trafficked work in hazardous environment and are
exposed to many dangers. They are not given a chance for freedom and
even they can’t make choices about themselves. They don’t get
education and are not even able to live their lives freely, just given some
food and clothes for their basic living.

2. FACTS AND FIGURES:
 As per the statistics globally 27 % of the victims of human
trafficking are children. In Pakistan 32022 trafficked victims are
reported per year from which 6937 were children.
 1.2 million children are trafficked every year worldwide according
to united nations
 Countries according to the child trafficking victims are ranked
under four tiers (tier 1, tier 2, tier2 watch list and tier 3) tier 3 is the
worst. Russia , Belarus , Turkmenistan , Burma , china , India ,
Iran , north Korea and Syria are ranked as tier 3 .Pakistan was
upgraded from tier 3 to tier 2 because of the efforts done against
trafficking .Most of the countries are tier 2 countries but expected
to fall in tier 3 in the future .
 Victims of child trafficking has increased by 20% from 2019.
 Worldwide 20% of the victims of trafficking are children.
 Approximately 45.8 million people are victims of trafficking
around the world and from which 10 million of them are children.
 However through these searches about statistics of human
trafficking cannot be just considered as the appropriate ones
because most of these cases goes undetected and unreported.
 In 36% cases of child trafficking their family is involved .
 54% of children are trafficked for sexual exploitation and one third
are for forced labor .In case of forced labor , 19% are forced to beg
, 18% are under domestic work , and 8% work for hospitality
sector .
 30% of the children trafficked are of age between 9-11.
3. CASE STUDIES:

So some cases were studied about the child trafficking.
CASE STUDY 1: This is a case of a 16 year old boy from Guatemala
whose family invited him to US under the pretense of getting education.
But as long as he arrived, his mother said that he has to pay his debt
which was used on him to bring him to the US. He was forced to work at
a construction site for 12 hours a day and 6 days a week. Even the
money he got from the job was taken by his stepfather, telling him that
those will be used for rent, food and the debt that he has to pay of
himself. When the stood against all of this his mother left him and he
didn’t had enough money to pay the rent and had nowhere to live. Then
he contacted a government agency who helps minors in US . He availed
government services and his case came under investigation.
CASE STUDY 2 : Jamila is 17-years-old. Jamila was four-years-old
when her parents decided to send her away to the city to her aunt.
Here she was to learn household chores and babysit her one-year-old
cousin. In exchange of this, her parents received 500 rupees and a carton
of oil each month.
Jamila is originally from a small town named Jampur, located in
southern Punjab.This part of the country is plagued with several ills such
as child labour, domestic violence, human trafficking and honour
killings amongst others.
But each year multitudes of girls flock to Karachi in search of better
living conditions and to seek refuge. It is what their mothers went
through and they're merely following tradition, willingly or unwillingly.
And what a mother suffers from, a daughter tends to repeat while
upbringing her children, leaving the girls from one generation after the
next, deprived of an education.
CASE STUDY 3: The girl horrifically had been forced to indulge in sex-
trading. She had come to the Edhi Foundation for help asking to be sent

back to Azerbaijan. Police had discovered that her passport had been
forcibly seized and subsequently extorted into prostitution.
4. LEGAL ACTION:
Certain acts are written in order to protect people from trafficking
nationally and internationally.
INTERNATIONAL:
UN has provided protocols against human trafficking
International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in
Women and Children: Article 7 of the convention urged the
governments to take legislative and administrative measures to stop
the trafficking of women and children in connection to immigration
and emigration.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989): Article 35 of the
convention states that the government should make sure that no child
in their territory is abducted, sold or trafficked. The convention also
incorporates rights of rehabilitation
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized
Crime: It was adopted by the United Nations in 2000 to combat
transnational organized crime. It is one of the most crucial
international instruments designed to combat trafficking. It was
implemented to fight crime in human trafficking with special focus on
women and children. Article 5 of the protocol makes it mandatory for
the States to criminalize trafficking in any form, be it attempted
trafficking or being a part of any organization which engages in
trafficking.
UNICEF and International labor organization has also played its
role in order to stop child trafficking internationally.

NATIONAL:
Pakistani laws criminalized Labor trafficking and sex trafficking and
prescribed penalties.
Section 371A and 371B criminalized the buying and selling of a
person for prostitution and prescribed penalties of up to 25 years’
imprisonment and fines.
Section 374 criminalized unlawful compulsory labor and prescribed
penalties of up to five years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both
Section 366A criminalized procuration of a “minor girl under 18” and
prescribed penalties of up to 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine.
Section 370 criminalized buying or disposing of any person as a slave
and prescribed penalties of up to seven years’ imprisonment and a
fine
Section 371 criminalized habitual dealing in slaves and prescribed
penalties of up to life imprisonment and a fine if the imprisonment
was less than 10 years.
UN implements its policies against human trafficking in following
ways :
 Helping countries to draft , develop and review the laws and
policies and action plans needed to combat human trafficking
effectively.
 Form partnerships with governmental and non-governmental
organizations and support joint investigations in trafficking crimes.
 They help countries to dismantle the criminal networks behind
human trafficking and seize the illegal proceeds .
 Provide tools like model laws , research and policy for up-to-date
knowledge to better fight against the crime of trafficking.

5. ROLE OF NGO’S :
Many NGOS are working for protection of rights of children against
child trafficking, forced labor, drug addiction. Following are the names
of NGOS working to protect rights of children .
 Child care foundation
 SHARP
 SPARC
 KONPAL Child abuse society.
 ARC (alliance for rights of child)
 CCF child care foundation of Pakistan
 Children first
 Voice of children
In a worldwide study there are 1861 anti-trafficking NGOS and are
playing its role to overcome child trafficking .Role of NGOS To
Overcome The Issue of Child Trafficking :
1. By raising awareness about trafficking
2. Gather and pass information about trafficking to communities
3. Proving a supporting role in rescue and arrest operations
4. Care of victims on day of rescue and assisting them to police
station, hospital or any temporary shelter following the rescue .
5. Screening interviews of victims not rescued or referred to state
agencies.
6. Assist and support victims through the justice system.
7. Assist and support foreign victims returning to their home
countries or nationals returning from foreign countries to which
they have been trafficked.
8. Assist and support victims to reintegrate into their communities.
9. Contribute and assist with work of law enforcement agencies in
investigating suspected cases of victims of trafficking.
10. Research about traffickers in their areas.
11. Rehabilitation of victims of trafficking.

12. Successful implementation of policies against trafficking.
13. Protecting rights of children, giving them a safe place to stay
and promoting education in poor areas to stop trafficking done
by families for money.
6. IMPACT ON VICTIMS LIFE AFTER INCIDENT:
Child trafficking is a horrific process of transporting children for forced
labor, sexual exploitation, drug transportation, prostitution etc.
Traffickers use psychological manipulations and coercive methods to
maintain control over their victims and to make their escape virtually
impossible by destroying their physical and psychological defenses.
Reported methods include physical, sexual, and psychological violence;
isolation; deployment in areas unknown to them; dependence on alcohol
or drugs; controlled access to food and water; and monitoring through
the use of weapons, cameras, and dogs
That the emotional and physical trauma and unrelenting abuse and fear
present a grave risk to physical, psychological, spiritual, and social–
emotional development. Case studies of victims suggest ‘‘the most
physically and emotionally damaging for the victim because of the
persistent physical, sexual and psychological abuse that accompanies it
on a daily basis’’. Some children die as a result of abuse and
exploitation; others disappear
They have physical health problems as well as emotional. After these
problems they have behavioral issues like antisocial behavior, not
trusting adults, attachment difficulties etc.
7. RECOMMENDATIONS:
 Awareness raising programs should be held about trafficking and
solutions should be told to avoid it .
 Hotline should be made to report child trafficking cases .
 Government should take necessary steps to overcome this issue
by making a department to track the cases , interview its victims
and held the traffickers to punishments .

 NGOS should be active in helping out the victims to reach the
agencies to report their case.
 Rehabilitation centers should be made for victims of child
trafficking .
 Educating the poor families that to sell their children to the devil
traffickers is not the solution to their problem .
8. CONCLUSION :
Because it’s a global issue so international effort is needed to stop
trafficking of children . NGOS , Government agencies , law
enforcement agencies need to work together to overcome this issue
so the future of children can be saved . As by the study 27% of
children worldwide are being involved in this horrific process .
Forced labor , prostitution , drug transport are the most dangerous
processes in which children are involved and it exerts
psychological trauma and physical health problems in children .
Nationally and internationally laws and policies are made against
this issue and implementation is also being made sure but as this is
a criminal activity done by bigger mafia’s and traffickers so it cant
be reported easily as these activities are hidden . But if this social
issue will be taken seriously internationally by the UNICEF and
international human rights agency this issue can be overcome .
9. REFERNCES :
 https://thectrp.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/
ht_impact_on_children_41081.pdf
 https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/tip-and-som/module-10/key-issues/
civil-society-actors.html

 https://www.siddysays.com/child-abuse-neglect-top-3-active-local-
ngos/
 https://sharp-pakistan.org/projects/completed-projects/human-
trafficking/
 https://www.dawn.com/news/1173045
 https://www.iom.int/sites/g/files/tmzbdl486/files/our_work/
DMM/MAD/Data%20Brief%20on%20Child
%20Trafficking_CTDC.pdf
 https://gijn.org/2018/02/28/10-case-studies-human-trafficking/
 https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-report-trafficking-persons-
2020