Children are often called the future of the nation. But day by day, an ill-fated portion of children are found involved in prostitution at their very tender age. According to Article 18(2) of Bangladesh Constitution, “State shall adopt effective measures to prevent prostitution and gambling”. The Penal Code,1860 also prohibits the buying and selling of minors for the purpose of prostitution under section 372 and 373. But in the year 2000, the High Court Division declared prostitution legal as long as the brothel or red light areas are properly licensed in a judgment. Despite the legality status of prostitution lacks clarity, the sex market in Bangladesh is expanding into every structure of our society. An estimation says that there are about 2,00,000 sex workers in Bangladesh whereas approximately 10,000 to 29,000 under aged girl are working as sex workers which is known as child prostitution. UNISEF considers child prostitutes as young girls in sex trade, who are in the age between 8 to 18 years. Many statistics say, average age of children engaged in prostitution is 14 years though there are many young children between 10-12 years entangled into the sex market. But it is a terrifying fact that only about 15% children belong to the age group of 15 to 18 years which means a massive percentage belongs to the age group 8 to 14 years. Children working on street based prostitution are comparatively younger than brothel and residence based. But another dreadful fact is the numbers estimated is very tinny amount which has been reported but it is much higher than the statistics which makes the enormity of this issue is extensive than imagination.
Becoming a sex workers at a very early age has a major psychological, physical and social consequences. Due to the fact, most of the clients prefer unprotected sex with under aged sex workers who are in more vulnerability of HIV/AIDS, others sexuality transmitted diseases (STD) and unintended pregnancy. Unprotected sexual activities making these girls physically hazardous. Moreover, being constantly abused are exploited causes physical damage like vagina tearing, injuries, pain and infections. At the initial stage, children forced into prostitution are sexually abused and group raped until the break down emotionally and compelled to accept the fate. Following that in the long term, they have to deal with the feeling of guilt, depression, trauma and low self-teem. Society has no such liberal outlook to accept them after getting detached from this profession. So, child prostitution has a deleterious impact on the entire community by damaging the health, well being and future prospects of the victims.
Being a compressive issue, the causes behind child prostitution is variegated. Poverty, trapped by procurers, human trafficking, illiteracy, gender discrimination, economic marginalization , influence of the powerful section of the society, dysfunctioning families, lack of awareness, lack of proper implementation of legal instrument are some of the causes of child prostitution. The fundamental reason behind involving in this sector is being victimize by people. As a easy money-making source, traffickers usually sell girls to their agents n exchange of money.
There are number of national and international instruments dealing with the child rights protection. Article 32 and 34(1) of Bangladesh Constitution; sections 364A and 366A of the Penal Code 1860, the Children Act, 2013, the Human Trafficking Deterrence and Suppression Act, 2012; National plan action for children (2005-2010) are some of the legal instrument for the child rights protection and policy against sexual abuse and exploitation of children including prostitution. Bangladesh has also ratified 7 out of 8 fundamental conventions of ILO for effective abolition of child labors. Due to the fact that child prostitution is a very sensitive and complex issue, the number of existing intervention is not adequate. So, there is huge gap between policy commitment and implementation. Deficiency of consideration to this specific issue is also a reason for non-implementation of these legal instruments.
There are many national and international NGO working against child prostitution but most of the service provided by them are rehabilitation oriented. These activities deal with post effects rather pre effects. To solve this issue, in a bigger perspective the state shall endeavor against commercial sexual exploitation of children and sex trafficking of minors. First of all, by holding public awareness campaigns addressing these problems need to be developed. State shall implement a national research agenda focused on developing strategies and methodologies for evaluating the effectiveness of prevention and intervention laws, policies and programs against child prostitution. Laws relating to trafficking and other misuses should be strengthen and implemented to hold exploiters, traffickers and solicitors accountable for their role in commercial sexual exploitation of children. Proper training to the people involved in the legal proceeding to deal with this issue. The most effective one can be by creating a digital information-sharing platform to deliver reliable, real time information on how to prevent, identify and respond to commercial sexual exploitation of minors. As a peeping issue, state, as the guardian of the children of her own, should concentrate this issue properly.
Fazrun Sultana Khan
Latest posts by Fazrun Sultana Khan (see all)
- Child Prostitution in Bangladesh: A Peeping Socio-legal Issue - August 21, 2018
