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The Code is Embraced by South Africa’s Tourism Sector to Combat and Prevent Child Sexual Exploitation

2010-11-01T02:55:00.000-07:00

South Africa. At least 40 000 children in South Africa are exploited as child prostitutes each year. The number of trafficked and exploited children is not known. Tourists, visiting businessmen and locals, sexually abuse and exploit these trafficked and enslaved children.

Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA) has brought the Child-Protection Code of Conduct (The Code) to South Africa. The Code is an instrument of self-regulation and corporate social responsibility, which provides increased protection to children from sexual exploitation in travel and tourism. Thirty South African tourism businesses have signed The Code. This commitment requires adherence to six criteria that have been found to effectively prevent and combat commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC):

1. Establish an ethical policy regarding commercial sexual exploitation of children
2. Train personnel in the country of origin and travel destinations
3. Introduce a clause in contracts with suppliers, stating a common repudiation of commercial sexual exploitation of children
4. Provide information to travelers by means of catalogues, brochures, in-flight films, ticket-slips, home pages, etc
5. Provide information to local “key persons” at the destinations
6. Report annually.

Although South Africa is not a renowned child trafficking destination, certain realities in South Africa create the perfect backdrop for the exploitation of children: the inflow of tourists, the ease with which people can cross its borders, high poverty levels and the lack of a specific anti-human trafficking law. South Africa has not yet made all forms of human trafficking illegal. These deficiencies allow trafficked and exploited children into South Africa where they remain largely undetected and perpetrators escape punishment.

South Africa’s tourism businesses have shown their commitment to prevent and help exploited children by signing and implementing The Code. These businesses have been training their staff, repudiating the sexual exploitation of children and educating their customers with posters and flyers. These two events in Johannesburg (8 June) and Cape Town (9 June) showcased thirty signatories, mainly South African companies that are new to The Code:

Abang Africa Trust, Avis, Bickley House and Antrim Villa, Budget, Cape Grace, Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), Cape Town Tourism, City Lodge Hotels Ltd., City Sightseeing, Coral International Cape Town, Don Suites, Europcar, Fairfield Tours South Africa, First Car Rental, Greenways Hotel, Hotel le Vendome, Hertz, Peech Hotel, Peermont Hotels and Casinos, Protea Hotels, Radisson Hotels & Resorts, Southern Sun, Spier, Taj Cape Town, The Backpack and Africa Travel Centre, Thebe Tourism Group, Tourvest Group, Westin Grand Cape Town Arabella Quays and Winchester Mansions. http://www.ngopulse.org/blogs/code-embraced-south-africa-s-tourism-sector-combat-and-prevent-child-sexual-exploitation-0

The Nelson Mandela Champion Challenge (Competition)

2010-10-13T02:30:00.000-07:00

The Nelson Mandela Champion Challenge (NMCC) is a by product of the Champion for Children Campaign (CCC) that would recognise and award outstanding initiatives aimed at protecting and nurturing children during and beyond the 2010 FIFA soccer world cup held in South Africa. The Champion for Children Campaign was meant to keep the focus for safety, protection and care during 2010 and beyond. As far as the information collected by the campaign during the FIFA soccer world cup, there was no recording of any untoward incidences. This can be attributed to the success of the Champion for Children Campaign.

The campaign was driven by the following elements:

Report Incidents of Abuse & Child Exploitation

· An appeal was made to all South Africans and visitors to report all forms of child exploitation using the following dedicated CCC tools: sms ,email, portal. All reported cases were captured and redirected to the various campaign partners such as Chid Welfare, Childline, South African Police Service (SAPS), Department of Social Development ect.

Raising Awareness

· South Africans were encouraged to use all forms and techniques to raise awareness within their communities on the risks facing children. The campaign used following strategies to raise awareness:

§ Community mobilisation

§ Campaign material distribution

§ Outdoor media

§ Electronic and print media

§ Collaborating with strategic partners including civil society and government.

Child Protection Initiatives

Individuals, communities and groups were encouraged to start projects to protect and nurture children within their communities, means and resources. Child protection initiatives were registered through: sms, email, portal. Champion’s were equipped with a toolkit that provided guidelines on how to start protects and examples of possible child protection initiatives they can implement

1. Champion Challenge Project Registration Process

Champion Challenge initiatives were registered through: sms, email and portal ie:

39646, sinazop@nmcf.co.za, www.championsforchildren.org.za

+Eligibility of initiatives

·         Proof of project existence

·         Area of the project (province)

·         Nature of the project

·         Duration of the project

·         Reference

1.   Champion Challenge Prizes

The Challenge Prizes will be in the form of cash and in-kind. There will be nine provincial winners and one overall national challenge winner.

Horror of child Sex Trafficking in South Africa

2010-10-13T02:21:00.001-07:00

Yet the World Cup and its vuvuzela-sound tracked drama hides a darker, more sordid game. While the footballers were in training, the country’s sex industry was gearing up for the influx of visitors, trafficking woman and girls into city brothels to meet the expected demand.
Sex trafficking is a problem worldwide, an estimated 1.2million children and young people are trafficked annually, becoming victims of sexual exploitation and abuse.
It happens in every country, from the richest to the poorest, butSouth Africa’s laws make it particularly hard to prosecute those involved. There has been an anti-trafficking bill on the books for five years, but it has yet to be made into law.
The Body Shop is launching a petition on July 15 in conjunction with ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) to raise awareness of the problem.
They commissioned photographer Hazel Thompson to document the work of Cape Town’s Vice Squads. She visited in April and found that an already thriving sex industry was expecting an increase in business during the World Cup. “In the week I was there we found seven confirmed cases of trafficking,” she says. “And they’re finding more and more girls every week.”
If a football fan was looking for a “good time” after the game and asked a taxi driver to take him somewhere he could find a girl, he would most probably end up on Koeberg Road, where prostitutes tout for business on the street and then take their customers to a car or sometimes to a run-down flat. They charge less than 150 Rand (£13.50) a time.
Thompson accompanied the Vice Squad on a raid in the area and found room after room containing girls who had been drugged, slumped on beds and surrounded by piles of rotting rubbish, vomit and faeces. One girl told them that she was 19 and from Pretoria. She had been offered work in Cape Town and then tricked and forced into a brothel.
Prostitution is illegal in South Africa but the evidence needed for prosecution is hard to come by. Brothel owners can only really be prosecuted under complicated laws against the misuse of business premises and the lack of anti-trafficking laws means the girl cannot be removed from the brothel unless she leaves of her own accord.
“This girl told us that she had been taken but the gang that ran the place was just outside and she was too scared to come with us,” says Thompson. “It was heartbreaking. If that law had been passed we could have taken her. As it is, the Vice Squad can only remove girls if they are foreigners and don’t have the correct paperwork.”
In the leafy Cape Town suburb of Table View there are at least 49 brothels. There sex costs around 500 Rand (£45) and the conditions the girls work in are far less squalid, but the prostitutes are still often on drugs and trafficked girls are found weekly.
The vast majority of clients are foreigners, Japanese and Chinese businessmen or international tourists. Hardly any use condoms.
Thompson spoke to a woman who ran one of these establishments. She said: “She told me people were asking for younger and younger girls, sometimes specifically requesting virgins. On one hand she was saying how sick this was and on another she was boasting that she was known to be able to cater to that demand.”
Poverty makes people, especially young people, susceptible to traffickers. The common scenarios are that young women are offered a job in the city and, once they get there, forced into sex work, or else persuaded into following a man they believe to be their “boyfriend” who then restyles himself as their pimp. Drugged, beaten and broken they have no means of escape.
There is a huge amount of money behind the sex industry, with syndicates from China or Russia often involved. Trafficking, to these people, is good business. You can only sell a trafficked drug once. A trafficked girl, on the other hand, is “reusable” for however long you can beat or drug her into submission.
One rescued woman calling herself Jasmine was sold into prostitution by her mother at the age of 13. She told Thompson: “It’s not easy to sleep with anybody, especially if you do not know that person. It is difficult the first time, the second time and even if you do it a hundred times, it is still as bad as the first time. It still hurts you. It is degrading to you as a person, as a woman, as a mother and as somebody’s daughter.”
Now she is no longer involved with the sex industry she has begun to gain some confidence. “I realise now that I am not just a piece of meat, I am also a person.”
Yet for every story with a positive outcome there are thousands of women and children who are too frightened to leave.
In 2006 there was a prostitution boom in Germany when it hosted the World Cup. Legal brothels were supplemented by girls trafficked from Eastern Europe and further afield but the laws were in place for police to crack down on the problem.
Women are already being brought to Britain in anticipation of increased demand around the 2012 Olympics but, again, there are laws in place to deal with it – which is not to say there is not a problem.
The Body Shop’s campaign is international, focusing on each country individually, but hopes that in South Africa’s case, international pressure can be brought to bear on the government, forcing it to pass the anti-trafficking laws.
They are encouraging people to sign an online petition at www.thebodyshop.com/stop or else visit a store to “raise your hand” against trafficking by tracing round it. Celebrities including Joanna Lumley, Sir Ben Kingsley and Twilight’s Robert Pattinson have already done so.
It’s important that a change in law is pushed through to give the police more powers when dealing with traffickers and also that the infrastructure for helping victims is strengthened.
Some feel that focusing on this issue at what is otherwise a time of joy for South Africa will give the country a bad name, but if pressure is applied from the international community the necessary laws could be in place by the end of the year.
Until then, Thompson will remain haunted by the girl too scared of her captors to leave with the Vice Squad. “She had a huge impact on me. It was the fact we left her behind.
“What upset me most was that the men running the place had no fear. It was easy for them, it was like they were mocking us being there. They thought they were untouchable. That was what left such a sick aftertaste. It was just cold, inhumane, and evil. And they were getting away with it.
By Clare Heal

Woman and Children in South Africa

2010-10-04T01:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.unicef.org/southafrica/children.html

Chapter 2 of the Constitution of South Africa

2010-09-15T03:48:00.000-07:00

Section 28 lists a number of rights held by children. These rights relate to domestic family life, child labour, education, imprisonment, and armed conflict. Its is stated that “In this section "child" means a person under the age of 18 years.“ and “A child's best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning the child.

1. Every child has the right:

a. to a name and a nationality from birth;

b. to family care or parental care, or to appropriate alternative care when removed from the family environment;

c. to basic nutrition, shelter, basic health care services and social services;

d. to be protected from maltreatment, neglect, abuse or degradation;

e. to be protected from exploitative labour practices;

f. not to be required or permitted to perform work or provide services that

i. are inappropriate for a person of that child's age; or

ii. place at risk the child's well-being, education, physical or mental health or spiritual, moral or social development;

g. not to be detained except as a measure of last resort, in which case, in addition to the rights a child enjoys under sections 12 and 35, the child may be detained only for the shortest appropriate period of time, and has the right to be

i. kept separately from detained persons over the age of 18 years; and

ii. treated in a manner, and kept in conditions, that take account of the child's age;

h. to have a legal practitioner assigned to the child by the state, and at state expense, in civil proceedings affecting the child, if substantial injustice would otherwise result; and