This is regarding the question you did for me this week earlier. Please respond with a
short answer with 1 citation to this. No word requirement.
As Autumn indicated this is really about supply and demand and I can understand that the
focus should be on the suppliers. But we have seen in the US, the war on drugs has not
been successful. We have focused on the suppliers as well as the users, to no avail. As
soon as you get rid of 1 pimp, or 1 cartel another takes their place. The money is too
attractive. Since most of these individuals pay off the police and government would it
help to start at the top?
Post 2
Focusing on those who operate the child-sex tourism industry is more effective in my
opinion as an attempt to put an end to the child sex trade. If you get the ones creating the
sex trade businesses and in charge, then you can collect the main source and possibly get
the suspects that are under him in leadership. In many cases there was much attention for
community involvement for child sex-tourism. "This is important to break the silence
around sexual exploitation of children and to inform children and parents about signals of
traffickers, consequences of sexual exploitation, how to prevent and report it and where
to find support." (ECPAT International, 2016) Community involvement is also important
to create efficient pressure on local government and the tourism industry to take child
protection measures. Another way is creating a confident environment for effective
discussion and practicing on how to react in suspicion of child sex tourism. Capacity
building seminars are best attended when they are short and effective to fit into the tight
schedules of the tourism industry and its personnel. Timing should also be adapted to the
seasonality of tourism. When training employees, they should not be required to
participate in seminars outside working hours and it should be considered that they take
information materials into their communities. The training of frontline personnel should
be done on a yearly basis, considering the rapid turnover of personnel. When developing
e-learning modules for the tourism industry, keep in mind that although internet might be
accessible in many Southern destinations, it often lacks the capacity, speed and stability
to do e-learning courses without problems.
Tourism is one of the world’s leading businesses and plays a major role in global
commerce. "Child sex tourism is the sexual exploitation of children by a person or
persons who travel from their home district, home geographical region, or home country
in order to have sexual contact with children. Child sex tourists can be domestic travellers
or they can be international tourists. CST often involves the use of accommodation,
transportation and other tourism-related services that facilitate contact with children and
enable the perpetrator to remain fairly inconspicuous in the surrounding population and
environment." (ECPAT International, 2016)
Child sex tourism involves the exchange of cash, clothes, food or some other form of
consideration to a child or to a third party for sexual contact. CST can occur over a long
period of time, for example, where there is a long ‘grooming’ process, during which a
child sex offender befriends a vulnerable child and obtains his or her trust before
exploiting the child sexually. In other cases, the child sex tourist purchases sexual
services directly from a third party that is holding the child in a position of exploitation
and who then makes the child available to the tourist.
"Child sex tourists come from all walks of life. They may be married or single, male or
female, wealthy tourists or budget travellers. A frequent misperception is that all child
sex tourists are middle-aged or older men, when in fact young tourists have been known
to travel for the express purpose of sexually abusing children. Child sex tourists may be
foreigners or domestic nationals who are travelling within their own country." (ECPAT
International, 2016) Some child sex tourists target children specifically, however, most
are situational abusers who do not usually have a sexual preference for children, but take
advantage of a situation in which a child is made available to them. "This type of
exploitation can occur anywhere in the world and no country or tourism destination is
immune." (The United States Department of Justice, 2017)
In fact, CST can occur in one destination and then move to another, as prevention efforts
in the original destination are stepped up by government authorities, the tourism industry
and child rights organisations. As child protection mechanisms increase in certain tourism
destinations affected by CST, it is important to remember that neighbouring destinations
may also be put at risk.
References
ECPAT International. 2016. PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM SEXUAL
EXPLOITATION IN TOURISM. Retrieved fromhttps://www.omicsonline.org/openaccess/sex-trafficking-in-the-tourism-industry-2167-0269-1000166.php?aid=58984
The United States Department of Justice. 2017. NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR CHILD
EXPLOITATION PREVENTION AND INTERDICTION. Retrieved from
https://www.justice.gov/psc/national-strategy-child-exploitation-prevention-andinterdiction#review
This is really a question of supply and demand. If we focus on the demand, or the
sex tourists, it would ultimately decrease the need for people to traffic children. In
the opposite way, decreasing the amount of trafficked children, from a supply
standpoint, there would still be demand, but that demand would not be met. What is
clear is that there is a definite need for actions that will work to stop the trafficking
of children. The psychological issues that occur from being trafficked as a child can
be detrimental to a person well into their adult years. Additionally the mortality
rate of children that are forced into sex trafficking is 40 times higher than that of a
person who was not involved in child sex trafficking. (Cecchet & Thoburn, 2014) It
is clear that this issue needs to be dealt with but it is unclear what the best way to go
about that is.
The forum question this week asks us to look at countries where child sex
trafficking flourishes, and many people do know understand that the United States
has a large amount of child sex trafficking. “Many people in the United States either
do not know what sex trafficking is, or believe that it only occurs outside of the
country” (Cecchet & Thoburn, 2014) Creating a level of community awareness
within the United States as well as in other countries that have high rates of child
sex trafficking is one way to help reduce the number of trafficked children. I am not
sure how many of you noticed this popping up on your news feeds last month but
January was human trafficking awareness month. This topic is something that is
just starting to come to the forefront of American issues and doing this type of
campaign will allow the public to be more informed on the issue. Knowing what to
look for and how to respond to instances of child sex trafficking is one way to
remove children from a horrible situation.
As far as how law enforcement should respond, I am of the opinion that we attempt
to reduce the demand for trafficked children as opposed to reducing supply. As I
stated earlier, if you attempt to cut off supply, there will always be demand and
more supply will crop up from other sources. Taking action to make the punishment
for being involved in child trafficking harsh enough to deter those crimes is one way
to lessen the supply side of things. The United States has created some pretty harsh
sentencing options for those that participate in child sex trafficking, including
mandating sentences that range up to 30 years in prison. (Pittaro & Normore, 2016)
While these sentencing options are definitely helpful in deterring crime regarding
child sexual trafficking, they need to be enacted across the globe in countries that
have high rates of child sexual trafficking.
On top of creating harsh sentencing options for sex offenders, it necessary to make
sure the the prosecution of these cases goes smoothly. There are times when it can be
difficult to prosecute sex trafficking cases, especially when the victim aligns with
their captor which often occurs in cases of underage prostitution. Especially in these
cases, it is necessary to make sure that law enforcement focuses more on the
prosecution of those utilizing the services and not on the victim that is prostituting
themselves. From my own personal experience I have seen girls that were trafficked
at a young age and yet have multiple criminal charges, where the people paying for
those services are rarely criminalized.
Another issue that comes into play for law enforcement is that they lack the training
and cooperation with other agencies to effectively find and prosecute offenders.
“One significant proposal centers on police organizations worldwide combining
forces, sharing intelligence, communicating openly, and cooperating on both smalland large-scale investigations.” (Pittary & Normore, 2016). In increasing the
amount of cooperation between nations we can more effectively stop sex offenders
that travel to other locations specifically for the purpose of engaging in child sexual
exploitation.
References
Cecchet, S. J., & Thoburn, J. W. (2014). The psychological experience of child and
adolescent sex trafficking in the United States: Trauma and resilience in
survivors. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy,
6(5), 482-493. doi:10.1037/a0035763
Pittaro, M., & Normore, A. (2016, June). International Efforts by Police Leadership
to Combat Human Trafficking. Retrieved February 1, 2018 from
International Efforts.
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