It Could Not Happen Here, Could It?
Around the world there are harmful threats, but every child, whether in a wealthy family or not, should properly grow up healthy and safe.Children are usually determined as the future of every nation and if that is so, the early stages of a child’s life should be good and adequate.Yet nowadays, even children from developed counties, like the United States, Mexico and Portugal, are not excluded from child abuse and are estimated to have ten times higher than other countries with succeeding highest rates (UNICEF, 2003). And one of major types of child abuse that is popular nowadays is sexual exploitation. According to Safeguarding Children (2014), child sexual exploitation involves children and young people threaten andbribed with presents, drugs, food, money, or something, in exchange to perform indecently sexual in sex acts and trade, in pornography, and even in photos on the internet.
National Underground Railroad Freedom Centeror NURFC (2014) reports that thetraffickers worldwide lures their victims, frequently takes advantage of those people who are in poverty. Since most in poverty lacks the access to knowledge and awareness of rights, they are easily lured to traffickers’ false words leading them to the trap of sex exploitation. According to Pace (2014), children are easily controlled and manipulated that they experience more of this domestic violence as the result of increasing poverty. In course of sexual exploitation, most cannot comprehend how a child is often lured to return to by his or her own abusers. The perpetrators, though instilling wrong loyalty, misleading these children to believe that they are worthless after being sexually abused. These children would usually disclose the abuse from anyone, especially their parents, since violently threatened if ever they do so. Enduring the abuse, the child would feel like protecting his family who is usually uttered threats.
Surviving the sexual exploitation, traumatized, the child brings with him or her memories of the excessive sexual abuse. There will be unwanted negative effects on the child’s physical, mental, emotional well-being due to the trauma. The probability of poor health and HIV infection will increase in both genders, and for girl, unwanted pregnancies may happen. Psychologically, the child may also experience uncertain conducts and trusting problems, which may need great effort on reviving the child back to his or her own community. Many of thechild survivors may find the essence to abuse drugs and over drink alcohol in order to fight the pain they have inside of them. Feeling unwelcome, ugly, unloved, shamed, despicable, and more negative thoughts during whole stage of the child’s life, a lot may have the tendency and the corrupted thought of committing suicide (The Code, 2012). The society would not want those things to happen in any child’s vulnerable life. Instead of being threatened of the fact that children are at risk of being sexually exploited, we should be focusing on proactive ways to prevent this, such as reducing the vulnerability of the children in poverty and prosecuting their abusers.
Any child or young person can become a victim of sexual exploitation, usually without even realizing they are being maltreated (Safeguarding Children, 2014). Children’s first sure of information are their own parents, and parents know better for their child’s conditions, life, and vulnerability than anyone else. Yet what if the parents of the child are not properly educated? The parents may also sexually abuse and exploit their own child due to poverty. Proper Education is very important and crucial for one’s life, and it is an important agent needed for harmony and peace within the society. One needs to understand the difference between what is right and wrong, and proper education has a great affect on it. If one is educated, he is well aware of the consequences of his wrong actions, since he knows his rights, the law and his responsibilities as a person in the society (Kidwai, 2014).
According to Humamium (n.d.), Education is an important right that allows a child to acquire right direction and to develop by society. The role of educational institutions must be strengthened by supplyinggood education,informing the specific risks of sexual exploitation, and making aware of how to seek help with those risks to children, especially those in poverty (World Vision, 2014).To prevent further sexual exploitation within families, the society could express their concern to children and his families’needs and even provide sufficient jobs for their parents. The youth, themselves, could take note and promote educational and interactive programs aimed at raising awareness of the issue to children and their families. Yet with being aware of the fact that child sexual exploitation is happen in poverty cannot save every child from being a victim of it. Since not everyone will accept and follow the laws and regulations of the society, not everyone can be saved from child sexual exploitation.
According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime or UNODC (2014), there has been an increase in the number of children being exploited, yet the number of people guilty on the crime is still very low. Being caught of sexually exploiting a child these days is not super major offence that ends one up to a lifetime jail sentence. According to Allen (2014), a pedophile director was jail only for five years and 11 months considering he paid children, as young as ten years old, to do sexual acts over the internet. He was guilty of twenty offences, yet why was he only jailed for a small amount of time? It is unjust for the abused children and their families.Recalling the police’s motto to serve and to protect, the society must help organize, raise, and protect its youth’s responsibilities. Even so, the police as a symbol of implementing law and order must continue its purpose and its goal in protecting and safeguarding lives and their rights, especially the children. They must continue to capture and arrest the employers of child sexual exploitation and maintain the peace in society by giving justified life sentences to perpetrators(Mc Combie, n.d.). At this instant, calling for governmental actions to fulfill its laws and policies significantly reflects on protection of children’s well-beings.However, the government has no enough power to scare of the criminalsto restraint curb this kind of attackon children, since there are still people are cruelly fearless to break laws.
It is clear, however, that there is still much to do. Yet we can make history happen and make our world a better place by simply participating and contributing to stop this hideous and threatening crime. Being threatened of the fact that children are at risk of being sexually exploited will not do anything good. We, the society, should be fix our eye and be alert of this fact. Directing and trying to control the situation from happening again and again, it is necessary for us to have a role to demote children in poverty’s endangered lives and promoting justice to the abused by negotiating the life sentences of the perpetrators.
Reference:
Allen, G. (2014, November 7). Company director who paid kids in Philippines to perform sex acts over the internet jailed. Retrieved December 4, 2014, from http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/company-director-who-paid-kids-4583828
Humanium.(n.d.). Understanding children’s right to education. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://www.humanium.org/en/fundamental-rights/education/
Kidwai, A. (2014, August). Top 15 reasons why education is extremely important. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://listovative.com/top-15-reasons-why-education-is-important/
Mc Combie, P. (n.d.). The police and the public uniting to combat increasing crime. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://www.rslpf.com/public.htm
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.(2014). Sex trafficking. Retrieved December 6, 2014, from http://www.endslaverynow.org/learn/slavery-today/sex-trafficking
Pace.(2014, January).The impact of child sexual exploitation on the whole family. Retrieved December 6, 2014, from http://www.paceuk.info/the-problem/the-impact-of-child-sexual-exploitation/#sthash.v1IWvnor.dpuf
The Code. (2012). Understanding child sex tourism. Retrieved December 7, 2014, from http://www.thecode.org/csec/background/
UNICEF. (2003, September 18). Press centre. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://www.unicef.org/media/media_14661.html
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (2014, November 24). Trafficking in children on the increase, according to latest UNODC Report. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2014/November/trafficking-in-children-on-the-increase–according-to-latest-unodc-report.html?ref=fs1
World Vision.(2014). Child protection. Retrieved December 7, 2014, from http://www.worldvision.org/our-impact/child-protection
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