A new report that looks at child trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation in Solomon Islands will be launched in Honiara on Tuesday.
“Dynamics of Child Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation in Solomon Islands” is a report produced by Save the Children Australia in partnership with the Ministry of Youths, Women, Children and Family Affairs last year.
The research was carried out in Choiseul, Malaita, Guadalcanal and Honiara.
Save the Children said key findings and root causes to trafficking commercial sexual exploitation of children includes limited education and employment, informal adoption of children, girls vulnerability to weaker bargaining power, male victims are invisible, and economic incentives.
In these provinces, the research targeted 13 communities, 1591 children, 1765 parents and care givers, 33 government and sectors and stakeholders, and 33 children and young people impacted.
Findings showed the logging industry was the main agent for human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
United Nation office on Drugs and Crime defines human trafficking in Persons as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, all boys and girls under the age of 18 in line with the definition of the child under; at the end of 2010, this Convention had been ratified by 173 of the 183 member States of the ILO.
Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
By CHARLEY PIRINGI
