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The definition of child trafficking and Palermo Protocol are set forth, together with the Optional Protocol to the CRC on child trafficking. Causes for child trafficking are examined including poverty, globalization, cultural traditions and gender roles. Different forms of child trafficking include trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation, domestic labor, agricultural work, begging and factory work. Services for children who have been trafficked are discussed together with efforts to stop child trafficking in both sending and receiving nations. Policy efforts are analyzed, including the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act in the United States and Sweden’s outlawing of the buying, but not selling of sexual services.

This chapter provides a detailed overview of the issue of child trafficking. Although the recruitment and movement involved in trafficking may appear voluntary at first, they eventually take on aspects of coercion by third parties. Girls, as with child domestic labour, are affected disproportionately, both for commercial sexual exploitation and domestic labour, whereas boys are more likely to be trafficked for forced labour. Critically, sexual exploitation, although dominant, is by no means the only form of child trafficking. A significant number of boys are also trafficked – both internally and externally from any one country – for sexual and other forms of exploitation. The chapter reviews key treaties, protocols, and conventions from 1949 that address the problem of child trafficking. Finally, it addresses a range of interventions demonstrated to be effective in fighting child trafficking, including stronger law enforcement and stricter, less ambiguous laws, as well as labour inspection, corporate social-responsibility mechanisms, and education.

This chapter examines the flourishing industry in transnational child trafficking leading to different forms of exploitative child labor in peacetime, along with its human rights implications. It begins with a discussion of important innovations in the representation of trafficked children who use the asylum protection system to secure a lawful permanent status, as well as progress in dealing with child victims of trafficking outside the asylum system. It then considers some of the complexities involved in curbing the “supply” of trafficked children, questions regarding the magnitude of human trafficking and how best to counter it, and the assumption that trafficking is simply a form of modern-day slavery. It also describes the law enforcement approach to child trafficking and public education campaigns for at-risk children about the danger of being trafficked. The chapter concludes by suggesting alternatives to existing strategies aimed at stemming the flow of trafficked children.

A National Referral Mechanism for the identification and support of human trafficking victims was implemented in the UK in 2009 following the ratification of the Council of Europe (2005) trafficking convention. Since then it has been criticised for its failure to adequately take into account the specific vulnerabilities of children and for its operation through a predominantly immigration focussed lens. This chapter explores why child trafficking identification and support in the UK is not primarily located within existing safeguarding frameworks; it proposes a model utilising present child focused expertise in an integrated child protection system.

Child trafficking has been noted to have a ‘lower profile’ than that of adult trafficking. However, numbers of recorded child victims are more than a third of the total of those identified in the UK by relevant authorities. Trafficked children have ‘particular vulnerabilities’, as recognised by the European Union (EU) Anti-Trafficking Directive. This chapter explores those specific needs and examines the UK's response to children who have been exploited. It looks at whether the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) works effectively for children and assesses how current policy/practice impacts on this affected group. Ultimately, child trafficking presents a major challenge for those working in the UK to understand, recognise, prevent and respond to. Approaches are often focused on children who have already been exploited and there is far less work done to prevent the exploitation in the first place.

Drawing on material from across the world, this book reviews issues relating to child slavery in a strategic way. It traces the history of the concept of slavery and the first attempts at abolition through to the range of conventions and protocols that emerged during the twentieth century. The book also examines the legal frameworks relating to child labour and child trafficking, and looks at child domestic labour in a wide range of countries, including Peru, India, Togo, Turkey, Tanzania, and the Philippines. The experience of the United Kingdom is also considered, and the issue of trafficking is analysed through the lens of a human rights approach. The book concludes with a Resources section that hopes to provide pointers to readers wanting to know more, or to become engaged in campaigns and lobbying around the issue of child slavery.

This chapter examines ways in which child exploitation is being monitored and policed, and provides a detailed conceptual and policy analysis of the experience of the United Kingdom. It discusses the laws and common understandings of child exploitation in order to draw together some key elements of what child exploitation, as a distinct type of child abuse, consists of. This will ultimately help practitioners and policy makers in developing more consistent systems in response to this problem. Although the wider concept of exploitation is analysed here, it is accepted that this largely focuses on the fact of child trafficking, with numerous forms of child exploitation as the end purpose of trafficking, including sexual exploitation, labour exploitation/forced labour, drug trafficking/smuggling/dealing, illegal adoption, servile/forced marriage, and begging. There remain arguments about definition and boundaries, and the growth of sectional and sectoral interests does not help the process of developing coherent and clear responses. The chapter explores such contested conceptual (and political) debates by locating the UK experience in the context of international conventions, notably the Palermo Protocol.

This chapter analyses the grounded experience of children trafficked into the United Kingdom, including those – such as an identifiable group of girls and young women – who are then trafficked on into other European countries. It uses a child rights perspective based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to examine dilemmas associated with child trafficking. It is widely believed that hundreds, and more likely thousands, of children are trafficked into the UK annually, and that this is not solely for sexual exploitation but for a much wider range of purposes. The chapter looks at the experience of children trafficked from West Africa into the UK, as well as their exploitation through domestic servitude, private fostering arrangements in the UK, child trafficking for forced marriage, and the link between culture and child trafficking.

This chapter deals with child trafficking from Nepal to other countries, particularly India. It cites the difficulties of obtaining accurate figures, although it is known that the scale of the problem is considerable. Programmes have been developed to address child trafficking but there has been recent criticism of national and local political apathy on the issue, and the continued chronic lack of law enforcement to address this problem. Girls who are trafficked for sex work are typically unmarried, non-literate, coming from rural backgrounds, and very young, factors that make them very vulnerable. Trafficking usually occurs with the collusion of parents or carers. Promises are made about the possibilities of work, and the push of poverty drives many young girls to put themselves in the hands of experienced, manipulative traffickers. The chapter identifies four key routes into sex trafficking: employment-induced migration, fraudulent marriage, deception (through false visits), and force (through abduction).

This chapter examines the issue of trafficking through the lens of a human rights approach. It argues that human rights, when fully implemented, provide a foundation to strengthen communities and reduce the vulnerability of children to sex trafficking. The chapter calls on governments and civil society to focus on rights that can further the goal of preventing child sex trafficking. In particular, the following rights offer significant potential for reducing vulnerability and protecting children from sex trafficking: the right to be free from all forms of discrimination; the right to birth registration; health rights; the right to education; and labour rights. Importantly, while the focus of the chapter is sex trafficking, these rights, when fully ensured, can help prevent other forms of trafficking and exploitation of children. The chapter also stresses the importance of a multi-organisational or multi-sectoral approach to child trafficking, one that does not depend on narrow policing, immigration, or social-welfare interventions.

Too often, research on unfree labour is speculative, inaccurate and downright damaging to the individuals labelled as ‘victims’. This Chapter will make the case that, in order to overcome these serious failings, we need to conduct in-depth qualitative research with victims themselves. This means giving voice to their analyses and experiences and it means spending time learning from and with them. In making this case, the Chapter will draw on the author’s research between 2005 and 2012 into ‘child trafficking’ and youth labour mobility between rural Benin and Nigeria.

This chapter examines the international legal frameworks relating to child labour and child trafficking. Even where states are politically willing to act effectively, the covert nature of child slavery can undermine these attempts; for those less politically compliant, the hidden nature of slavery provides an easy means for avoiding their responsibilities. The chapter concludes that the movement from generic rights to the creation of treaties concerned with more distinct practices and a focus on child-specific rights has led to the positive construction of measures that go beyond criminalisation and which are aimed at providing more comprehensive assistance to the victim and the recognition of children as active rights holders. It also discusses the prohibition of slavery, which was established in the 1926 Slavery Convention and subsequently reinforced under Article 4 of the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights; slavery and servitude; forced labour; inception of child rights and child welfare; and implementation and enforcement of international laws on child slavery.

This chapter explores how education for all children can eradicate child trafficking in India. There are international conventions covering the issue of education, notably in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, but while most countries, such as India, have signed up to these, in practice the desire of parents to send their children to school, thus opening up opportunities to better themselves, is overwhelmed by major structural factors such as family poverty, illiteracy, and the cultural and historical ties of debt bondage. The chapter's approach to education is based on the Freirian concept of critical pedagogy, which views education as empowerment and the development of critical consciousness, illustrated through case studies collected in a fieldwork study. Using these case studies, the chapter examines how critical consciousness can be developed to confront factors making villages more prone to child trafficking. It also considers labour exploitation in India, forms of oppression and the need for conscientisation in villages, and conscientisation of children from Bal Ashram.

This chapter examines international adoption and child trafficking in Ecuador. International adoption involves a number of policy, service, and legal actors operating within a policy and legal framework. Where officials are corrupt (even if, in their defence, they are driven to be so by their own poverty) or do not fully understand the niceties of that framework, agencies and individuals can manipulate the system to their own advantage. What can be presented by clever operators as an adoption process is, in reality, child trafficking, involving children who have been stolen or removed from parents by a combination of threats and promises. The issue is, in reality, not about a series of ‘irregular acts’ by criminals acting alone. A serious adoption scandal in the Ecuadorian capital, Quito, in 1989, had a major impact on policy formulation and public administration in a crucial moment in the history of child-rights implementation.

This chapter explores the ways in which late nineteenth century campaigning organisations publicised the issue of child trafficking. Continuities can be identified in the way the issue of child trafficking was discussed in the media then, and, as is the case today, with reports of ‘trafficking’ that tend to adopt sensationalist exaggerated tones. Previously melodramatic themes were evidenced in the social purity campaigning activities, serialised style and pseudo-factual story-telling to convey to an unsuspecting public the tragic situations of victims, through emotional appeals and righteous indignation. Similar tactics are characteristic of contemporary child trafficking policy and media discourses.

This chapter examines intercountry adoption and how it affects children moved from the “majority” to the “developed” world each year to become part of a new family. The assumption that children belong within a nurturing family environment forms a bedrock of international human rights law. It is also a key feature of immigration and citizenship law. The chapter explains how intercountry adoption gives rise to heated public controversy over what constitutes the “best interests of children.” It considers several causes for skepticism about the value of intercountry adoption, including increased uncertainty about the unqualified benefits of “plenary adoption.” It also shows how increasing commercialization and the lack of adequate safeguards are resulting in criminal abuses including child trafficking, abduction, and sale. Finally, it discusses intercountry adoption as a form of child migration and argues the need to improve the current system of intercountry adoption.

This chapter, drawing on the experience of Plan International, describes the utilisation of birth registration as a tool to prevent child trafficking. In many countries, failure to register births often happens on a large scale because of a failure of government resources, inadequate administrative procedures, family poverty, a lack of awareness, limited political will, and corruption. Parents are also often discouraged by the prospect of taxation or even by the fear that registered children become, in due course, ‘visible’ for conscription into armies or slave armies. Yet this registration is the key to claiming a host of rights: in a sense it defines the child as existing at all, hence its enshrinement in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles 7 and 8). It opens the way to healthcare, education, nationality, and to the formal labour market. In other words, birth registration can be an effective means of protecting children, preventing sexual exploitation, and prosecuting cases of child slavery.

My anthropological research on security and participation in media production converged when I made a television program about illegal adoptions and child trafficking. Following the video format of consecutive "takes," this chapter examines why Iguazú residents treated adoptions as a public secret and refused to talk about them on the record. Scarred by scandalous media stories about the trade in babies, residents of the marginalized province feared that common practices of informal fosterage could be misinterpreted as child trafficking, resulting in more deleterious legal and socioeconomic effects. Comparing my experience of making the television episode with writing this book, I highlight important differences between methods and ethics of journalistic and ethnographic knowledge production.