Turkey is set to make another attempt to introduce a bill aimed at giving rapists amnesty by allowing them to marry their victims. The legislation which was first brought to parliament for debate on January 16 would pave the way for amnesty to men convicted of child sex offenses so long as they reach a marriage agreement with their victims and their age difference is less than 10 years.

Critics Slam Bill As Legalizing Child Abuse

Critics of the bill have voiced their concerns on grounds that it could legalize statutory rape and child abuse. The UN has also raised concerns that the law would essentially legalize child rape and leave the victims at the mercy of their tormentors.

Leading campaigns against the bill in the Turkish parliament is the opposition party the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) which has stated that standing against the legislation is “a duty of humanity.” One of the party officials Mrs. Figen Demirci warned: “This amnesty law could actually lead to the reduction of the legal age of sexual intercourse to under 12 years with the child then forced into marriage.” The party’s spokeswoman complained that the government appeared to be more interested in protecting the rights of child abusers than that of other vulnerable people.

History Of Turkey’s Rape Marriage Law

Turkey’s rape marriage law was in existence until 2005 when the country repealed it as part of the negotiations to join the European Union. However, in 2016 the Erdogan government made an attempt to reintroduce the law by allowing 3,000 men accused of statutory rape to marry their victims. However, because of the public outcry the issued generated both locally and internationally the proposal was dropped.

The matter resurfaced last year with Turkey’s ruling party AKP insisting that the aim of the legislation was not to excuse rape but to rehabilitate those who may not have realized that their sexual relations with young girls was unlawful, and also to protect the young victims from being ostracized. This came against a backdrop of a 2018 report that showed that a total of 482,908 girls under 18 were married since 2008 in Turkey, despite the legal marriage age being 18.

The Colonial Roots Of Rape-Marriage Laws

Rape-marriages are common in many Arab and Asian countries. According to Humans Rights Watch, many originated from colonial laws in the Middle East and North Africa. HR Watch Senior Researcher, Rothna Begum wrote, “They largely stem from or were inspired by the French Napoleonic code of 1810 which allowed a man who kidnapped a girl to escape persecution if he married her.”

These laws were further supported by patriarchal attitudes that linked a family’s honor to a woman’s chastity and virginity. In many countries rape victims were treated like outcasts and marrying them was resented and seen as shameful. However, because of international pressure and campaigns by women, some countries have began to repeal the draconian laws.

Case Studies: Morocco, Bahrain, Tunisia, Jordan And Lebanon

In 2014 Morocco repealed a provision that allowed convicted rapists to evade punishment by marrying their victims. However the repeal was only taken after a 16-year-old girl called Amina Filali committed suicide by swallowing rat poison after she was forced to marry a man she had accused of raping her.

In 2016 Bahrain Parliament voted to repeal a similar law but the cabinet rejected the proposal on grounds that the marriage loophole should be revoked only in cases of gang rape.

In 2017 Tunisia , Jordan and Lebanon also furthered women’s rights protections by repealing legislation that allowed rapists to avoid criminal prosecution if they married their victims. However, Lebanon was criticized for retaining a loophole that allowed sex with children between the ages of 15 to 17 and seducing a minor with the promise of sex. According to women’s rights campaigners, this article also needs to be repealed.

Nevertheless, UN Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Raad Al Hussein welcomed these reforms stating there’s no place for hideous laws that seek to “punish a rape victim by making her marry the perpetrator of a horrible crime against her.”

‘Work Towards The Swift Repeal Of Other Legislation That Condones Sexual Violence Against Women And Girls’

She urged the governments of Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia and other Arab countries “to build on this positive momentum and to work towards the swift repeal of other legislation that condones sexual violence against women and girls and perpetuates discrimination against them in clear violation of international law.”

For a country like Turkey which is divided between religiously-based laws and secularism, the proposed bill is likely to generate a heated debate in the political and religious spheres. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has never hidden his perception of the role of a woman in the context of Islam. In 2014 he was accused of sexism when he said that “you cannot put women and men on an equal footing.”

But as Fatma the spokeswoman for the PDP said in response to the marry your rapist bill that the attempt to pass it will increase opposition to abuse of women and girls and awareness of their situation: “The struggles of women is spreading in waves, creating a butterfly effect. We will never allow the masculine mentality which wants to dominate the world to win.”

L'articolo Turkey To Introduce ‘Marry Your Rapist’ Bill proviene da InsideOver.

Northern Nigeria’s Almajiri unstable Islamic educational system leaves children vulnerable to sexual and commercial exploitation and prime fodder for Islamist militant groups like Boko Haram.

“A Scar On The Face Of Northern Nigeria”

In September 2019 the Nigerian police rescued more than 300 boys and men found chained at an Islamic School in Kaduna, Northern Nigeria. The victims—some as young as five—were not only chained, but beaten, with multiple scars and sores on their backs. Reuters reported that some of the students had come from neighboring West African countries, including Ghana, Burkina Faso and Mali.

The Kaduna students’ rescue is one episode of many rescues of people—many of them children—from harsh Islamic schools in Northern Nigeria, as Nigerian authorities launched a crackdown on informal Islamic schools and rehabilitation centers in September. Nearly 1,500 people have been rescued in schools in Kaduna, Daura, Ilorin and Ibadan.

In Daura, Katsina State, 300 men, including drug addicts, were rescued on October 14, where they were chained and sexually abused. Other reformatory Islamic schools in Ilorin, Western Nigeria, and Ibadan and southwestern Nigeria were also raided and closed recently.

What’s Behind The Rise Of Nigeria’s Islamic Schools?

Nigeria’s drug abuse and mental health crisis, along with a lack of public, government-funded rehabilitation and mental health facilities, has led to the rise of informal Islamic schools promising social answers to those in need of help.

The Almajiri system of education are Islamic schools with a longstanding tradition in northern Nigeria, dating back to the 11th century. The Islamic revolution of the 18th century solidified the Almajiri system under the Sokoto Caliphate. This system of education focuses on Qu’ranic and Islamic education, where students also learn a trade for livelihood. Under the Sokoto Caliphate, schools were regulated and teachers reported directly to the Emir of their province. Students in the school were raised by teachers, parents, leaders and the community at large. To supplement the Almajiri system, students would farm and bring food for the school. Like Western education, it was a course in the society and culture of the region where students were taught the Islamic and northern Nigerian way of life.

Colonial British Dismantling Of The Almajiri System

Under British colonization, however, British rulers deliberately dismantled the Almajiri system, killing most of the Emirs of the region and abolishing state funding of the system. The dismantling of this system directly created the structural problems facing Islamic schools in Nigeria today.

A 2014 UNICEF report estimated that there are 9.5 million Almajiri children in Nigeria, making up 72 per cent of the nation’s out-of-school children. Estimates reveal that Nigeria presently has between 13.2 million and 15 million out-of-school children, most of them in northern Nigeria.

A Stark Warning If The Almajiri System Isn’t Improved

Nigeria’s National Security Adviser (NSA) Babagana Monguno recently warned the Nigerian government of the future of the Almajiri system, should it be allowed to persist. Speaking at the beginning of December, at the launch of the country’s revised national security strategy for 2019, Monguno laid out the dark future if the system isn’t improved.

“The issue of illiteracy is directly linked to the issue of children not going to school, this Almajiri phenomenon which we have been talking about, we cannot continue to push it under the carpet because what? Eventually, it will come back to bite us in the butt big time. We need to deal with this issue and it is the responsibility of all of us to try and take care of this issue without any inhibition,” he said.

“The issue of insurgency in the northeast is directly linked to the issue of terrorism in the Sahel which is an increasingly volatile neighborhood and the situation is also derived from what is happening in Libya which in turn is affected by the lack of security Syria which derived its own situation ultimately from Iraq,” Monguno continued.

“Now, what the strategy does is to look at our national security objectives and align these objectives with this administration’s goals in fighting corruption, giving access to improved education, taking care of the healthcare problems as well as increased productivity in the agriculture sector. But rooted in the strategy are issues that may not be visible to the naked eye, but issues that have tended to be malignant to cause a lot of greater problems to this society,” he added.

The Almajiri System Is Central To Northern Nigerian Identity

Many Northern Nigerians align their sociocultural identity with the Almajiri school system, because of its long-standing history of involvement with Nigeria’s Islamic heritage and northern Nigerian tradition. Its desecration at the hands of the British created a socio-cultural distrust against Western education that continues today.

Under the Almajiri system today, students are forced unto the streets by their teachers to beg. Facing extreme poverty, parents are unable to care for their children, leaving children and vulnerable adults under the full supervision of Almaraji teachers. Furthermore, the Nigerian government is unwilling to change the system for fear of upsetting northern Nigerians, who would interpret such actions as a move towards Western education.

Facing extreme child and sexual abuse, children under the current Almajiri education system are often angry and abandoned, and become easily brainwashed by Boko Haram and other militant groups. It’s important to face the truth of the challenges facing the Almajiri system. As Monguno stated:

“Fundamentally, if we are going to take care of these problems, we need to try and safeguard the fast-growing young population of Nigeria and guess what? We need to look at issues of poverty eradication and illiteracy. I will tell you one thing. The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari in its pursuit for greater and enhanced security will not allow itself to be blackmailed or handcuffed by the disarming philosophy of compliance with certain aspects that are socio-cultural in nature which people tend to be adverse to dealing.”

Monguno puts it best:

“We must grab the bull by the horn and deal with these issues.”

L'articolo Nigeria’s Almajiri Children: Abused, Abandoned and Brainwashed proviene da InsideOver.

Faced with poverty, unemployment, and diseases, many Africans have turned to religion as their only source of hope and solace. However, many became the victim of religious abuse as a result of bogus preachers who capitalised on people’s desperation to gain fame, wealth and also satisfy their sexual lust.

They have been known to hoodwink their followers into parting with huge sums of money and also subject them to dubious rituals, in the name of “performing miracles”. As Professor Dion Forster, a teacher of Ethics and Theology at Stellenbosch University in South Africa explained, these miracles are usually staged using “actors, psychological tools or technologies”, and are meant “to attract members and also to establish a hierarchical religious power structure with the pastor at the top.”

As a result of these miracles, many have been injured, marriages have been broken and hundreds have lost their lives, all in the hands of these deceptive preachers and prophets.

What are these miracles?

In April this year, 18 people were hospitalised and 27 reported dead after being convinced to drink a bleaching agent called Jik by a preacher who claimed it would “wash away all the demons”. The preacher whose name is Rufus Phala had told his church members that they were drinking the blood of Jesus and not Jik. It was not the first time Phala duped his followers into drinking a cleaning liquid. In 2016 he drew wide condemnation after he made his followers at the Ark Centre Ministry in Limpopo, drink Dettol.

In 2017, Pastor Paul Sanyangore of World International Church in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe claimed that he had “God’s direct line,” and could “call him any time to get instructions”. Standing in front of stunned worshippers, he ordered a woman in the congregation to be brought before him. As the woman knelt, Sanyangore produced his mobile phone and started saying: “Hello, is this heaven? I have a woman here, what do you have to say about her?”

The pastor then turned to the worshipers telling them that God had replied to him that they should pray for the woman’s children, one of whom was epileptic and the other asthmatic. In what appeared to be a stage-managed prophecy, the woman confirmed that what the pastor was saying was true. Although to most outsiders this was another hoax from Sanyangore, his staunch followers strongly believed the pastor was able to communicate with God on the phone.

In an interview with France24 about the incident, Sanyangore defended himself arguing, “If God can speak through a donkey, why can’t he speak through a phone? People don’t believe that God spoke in a phone yet they believe that the mouth of the donkey was opened by God and that God spoke through a burning bush.”

Sanyangore would later be humiliated by his cousin who made outrageous claims that he faked miracles and cheated on his wife. Soon after, people began to leave his church in droves.

Another South African preacher called Pastor Alph Lukau of Alleluia Ministries in Johannesburg caused a furore after a video emerged online showing him allegedly resurrecting a dead person. It was claimed that the body was being returned to Zimbabwe for burial when the mourners decided to pass by Lukau’s church. In the clip, a hearse pulled up outside the Church, and the wealthy preacher was called outside by the mourners. Moments later the coffin was opened, and Lukau laid his hand on the dead man.

Before long the man named Elliot rose from the dead, as mourners watched in disbelief. It later turned out this was a prearranged ‘miracle’ by Lukau to win more followers and praise. Investigations were immediately launched by the South African Commission for the Protection of the Rights of the Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities. Two people were eventually arrested for fraud in connection with the hoax resurrection.

Still, in South Africa, a pastor called Penuel Mnguni attracted the wrath of the locals because of his unscrupulous healing rituals at his End Time Ministries church. This was after he sprayed his followers with pesticides, and also fed them snakes claiming they had been turned into chocolate. Unable to withstand his rituals, locals chased him out of a township in Pretoria where his church was located.

Not even the most vulnerable people in society such as women and children have been spared by these crooked preachers. Many of them have been molested, sexually abused, and assaulted in the name of being healed. A Ghanaian church leader by the name Bishop Daniel Obinim of International Godsway Ministries caused an uproar when an online video showed him stepping on a pregnant woman’s abdomen in the name of exorcising demons.

Other preachers such as Bishop Gilbert Deya from Kenya, exploited the desperation of infertile women to conduct fake miracles. Deya, then based in London, convinced these women that they would be able to give birth after prayers and on taking a trip to Kenya. After prayers, the women were sent to Kenya where they were made to believe that they were in labour pain before giving birth. Investigations later revealed that the so-called “miracle babies” were children stolen from maternity hospitals in Nairobi. Last year Deya was extradited to Kenya from Britain, to face charges of stealing babies. His wife had been sentenced to a similar charge in 2011.

So why are Africans so susceptible to religious abuse?

According to Professor Forster, this susceptibility is because of the moral and political failures of the state and politicians. He explains that religious leaders tend to gain trust in situations where the population faces high levels of economic and social vulnerability.

To protect the public from these bogus preachers, many countries have now introduced legislation to regulate religious leaders and churches. In South Africa, this is being carried out through the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights, Cultural, Religious, and Linguistic Communities.

The Commission is setting up a standard of qualifications, registration, and conduct which all religious organisations and leaders will have to meet. Last year Rwanda closed 8000 churches and some mosques who were involved in operations the government claimed “threatened the lives of worshippers”. Church leaders in the country are also required to have a degree so that they can teach the correct doctrines.

L'articolo African Preachers Preying on the Vulnerable proviene da InsideOver.

157 child slaves were rescued by Interpol in Nigeria and Benin in April 2019.

Rescued during “Operation Epervier II”, the child slaves worked as market peddlers, “carrying heavy loads or fetching water”. Of the 121 girls and 36 boys, some worked as housemaids and others worked as (forced) prostitutes.

Nigeria – although oil-rich – has been, “long hobbled by political instability, corruption, inadequate infrastructure, and poor macroeconomic management.”

According to UNICEF, “the end of the oil boom in the late 1970s coupled with mounting poverty has driven millions of children into labour [in the twenty-first century].” As a result, Sub Saharan Africa’s largest economy has 62% of its more than 181 million population living in extreme poverty.

Modern slavery

Nigeria is one of the top scoring African nations with an “estimated vulnerability to modern slavery”.

Forced labour – including child labour – is a significant money-making business in the nation. Nigeria is a “major source, transit, and destination country for forced labour and sex trafficking.”

According to End Slavery Now, “more than a quarter of the world’s slaves are children. These children are forced to commit commercial sex acts, forced into a system of domestic servitude or employed in occupations that are mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful.”

In Nigeria, 31.1% of children, aged 5 to 14, work. 26.8% of children, aged 5 to 14, combine work with primary school. Only 73.8% of students aged 5 to 14 complete primary school.

Free and compulsory education in Nigeria is federally mandated by the Education Act. However, compulsory education is often not enforced from state to state. School is also often a for-profit business in a country where free schools are considered the worst option for students. Furthermore, there is a lack of teachers nation-wide and “inadequate sanitation facilities, particularly for girls.”

A review by the Bureau of International Labor Affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor concluded that: “Children in Nigeria engage in the worst forms of child labor, including in quarrying granite and gravel, commercial sexual exploitation, and armed conflict. These children work in hazardous conditions with little food, small pay and no medical care.

Other examples of child labour in Nigeria include forced begging, agricultural labour, forced recruitment for army groups, including rebel groups, forced recruitment in armed robbery and drug trafficking, automotive repair and construction.

Nevertheless, according to the Global Slavery Index of 2018, the nation has been “proactive in responding to modern slavery”, despite “the Africa region ha[ving] the lowest average regional government response score.”

International Child Slavery

The problem of child slavery in Nigeria is an international one. UNICEF reports that “in West Africa’s Lake Chad region” Boko Haram has devastated the lives of “millions of families.”

Thousands of people in this region rely on smugglers daily to get them out of the country. Often, they end up trapped in Libyan detention centres, “where they are beaten, abused and indefinitely detained.”

Many Nigerian young women and girls are sold and forced into prostitution in southern and western Europe. Currently, there are over 10,000 Nigerian prostitutes in Italy. This figure, according to Mr Arinze Orakwe, the director of public enlightenment at the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).

At a June conference for action on illegal migration and trafficking, Mr Orakwe claimed that over 20,000 Nigerian girls are currently in Mali, waiting to cross over into Europe through the Sahara desert, North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea.

Paul Stanfield, Interpol’s director of organised and emerging crime attributes human trafficking in Nigeria to “organised crime groups who are motivated by money.”

0.8 per cent of the Nigerian population are estimated to live as slaves. While the nation has improved its response to tackling slavery, the problem will not be solved until the nation’s deep social, political and economic wounds are tackled.

L'articolo Ending Child Slavery in Nigeria and Europe proviene da InsideOver.

Akihabara in Japan is a bustling hub crammed with stores that sell anything from electronics to manga to souvenirs. Yet, there is a darker side that attracts a very specific but sizeable audience. There is one street known as “JK alley” or “schoolgirl alley”. Here, underage girls – often dressed in school uniforms – ply a very unique trade under the watchful eyes of their “bosses”.

Older men will pay to spend time with the girls; this could range from getting their fortunes read, having a cup of tea, massages, or going for a walk. And in some cases, these “walking dates” turn out to be a front for prostitution where the underage girl will have sex with the man.

An annual review of human trafficking in Japan singled out JK walking dates, saying that they are often fronts for prostitution.

In 2016, Maud De Boer-Buquicchio, the UN special rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography made a statement at the 31st session of the Human Rights Council. She said that she was highly concerned about the sexual commodification of children in the “JK” business, which targets high school-aged girls and facilitates their sexual abuse and exploitation.

“The problem exists, and we can ignore it, deny it, or find the most effective way of combatting it in order to better protect teenage girls in Japan,” she argued.

Fostered by Japan’s JK culture, which means joshi kosei or high school girl, images of young girls are depicted everywhere and used to sell everything. Young girls are especially popular in cartoons and comic books. This fetishisation of schoolgirls in Japanese society has steadily grown since the 1980s.

“Haruto Kakimoto”, a 30something old Japanese-British businessman, who spent a lot of time in Tokyo, said that the relationship between men and wanting to have sex with young girls is not something that is hidden away as it is in Western countries.

“You see guys reading these comic books about grown men having sex with little girls on the train all the time. It’s almost like a normal part of society,” he explained.

“You have to understand that Japan shut itself off for 2,000 years to the entire world. It didn’t have any influence from Christianity or Islam so sex was not seen as something that should be regulated or ruled. The taboos in Western countries surrounding sex because of religious guidelines, never happened in Japan so they are, by nature, far more sexually liberated.

“This “dirty old man” phrase we use in the West is not really used in Japan. Because they feel there is nothing wrong with having fantasies or perversions – even when you get older. So in a country where sex has never been regulated – it is monetised. They kind of see it as all men have fantasies and it is a natural part of human life. Guys are going to think about it and want to do it so they think they might as well provide outlets for it and monetise it.”

Jake Aldenstein is a journalist who spent more than 20 years investigating the Japanese underworld. Working closely with Vice News, he said in a documentary:

“You could sort of encourage education that would let women think of themselves as something other than sexual merchandise to be purchased by men. Part of the reason this Lolita culture exists in Japan is because the life and the opportunities for women are so bad. The society is one of the most misogynistic, sexist societies in a developed country in the world.  I would not want to be a woman here. “

This often means that vulnerable young girls, too often, get caught up in this sordid world of sexual perversion that caters to the desires of adult men. Most of the girls in JK alley are there because they were isolated at home or school, before ultimately ending up in the industry.

Because Japanese culture heavily focuses on honour, the girls feel trapped and unable to ask for help from their families due to not wanting to disappoint them. As such, most would prefer to face the strife of enforced prostitution than to face the shame of asking for help from loved ones.

L'articolo Schoolgirls for Sale in Japan proviene da InsideOver.

Josper spoke despondently about how she was forced into having sex as a child because of an ancient village custom. Unsurprisingly, she found herself pregnant by the age of 12. She was then made to abandon her new-born baby by the river bank so that the lions could eat it. “It hurts me a lot when I remember what I did, but I was advised by the elders to do it,” she explained.

In a tradition known as “beading”, older men rape these young girls – some as young as 6 years old. It is the fate of many Samburu girls in the far-flung dusty enclaves of Kenya.

A close relative will meet with the girl’s parents and offer her a necklace intricately woven with bright beads on behalf of a man from the community. Once accepted, the chain will be placed around the child’s neck and the man is then able to start a sexual relationship with the girl. Around this time, the girl will be prepared for female genital mutilation.

Her family will build a small hut adjacent to their home where the older male can visit their daughter to have sex with her any time he wishes. It is a temporary arrangement, but it could last for years.

The widespread belief is that this will prevent girls from being promiscuous and wayward – an idea that is upheld and protected by the elders. To go against it could ignite various superstitions, and will be seen as disrespecting the traditions of the local people.

As condoms are never used, many of the girls fall pregnant, however, the girls are not “allowed” to get pregnant. Any who does will be unable to keep the child, since it is regarded as a shame on the family, and will prohibit the girl from being able to get married.

Crude abortions are performed on pregnant girls, putting their health and lives at risk. If abortions are not possible, then after the girl gives birth, the baby is likely to be killed.

“I can’t give birth. I can’t bear a child,” said Joyce Lenatilia, who had undergone two abortions by the age of 12. “I was told that I might have terminated both pregnancies with the use of strong herbs, and so I can’t give birth again.

“I’m now an outcast, and everyone ridicules me,” she said. “I can’t talk to other women since I have no child. I’m now living alone without a child, and nobody wants to marry me.”

Further risks include HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, in an area where there are often high cases of STDs. Coupled with the fact that, after many botched abortions, a lot of women’s reproductive organs get injured, which results in added social stigma if she is unable to conceive. Many young girls are left feeling physically, emotionally, and mentally traumatised.

Dr. Josephine Kulea is an activist who founded Samburu Girls Foundation, (SGF) – a non-profit that is dedicated to rescuing girls from child-marriage, beading, and FGM. Over the years, she has worked relentlessly to save girls from this web of abuse. She has rescued almost 1,200 girls, and over 300 have been sponsored to go to school across the country.

A Samburu herself, she survived beading and early marriage. She was given a second chance at life when a priest helped to organise education for her at a boarding primary school in another area. Supportive of her education, her mother refused all advances from men in the village who expressed interest in Dr. Kulea. When she finished secondary school, she got a scholarship to attend the Mathari Consolata Nursing School in Nyeri.

Dr. Kulea believes that for change to come, there must be a start somewhere. “I just felt that it is wrong,” she says.

Something wrong is going on in my community. And that is where my passion began. And so I decided to help out the girls.

L'articolo Rape Tradition of “Beading” Underage Girls In Kenya proviene da InsideOver.

Over the past few years, Ghana’s economy has steadily grown. This marked improvement in business dealings means that more foreigners now travel to the West African country. Yet, something disconcerting lurks underneath this international attraction – child prostitution.

It is estimated that there is somewhere in the region of 100,000-200,000 underage prostitutes in Ghana – some as young as 9-years-old.

One such girl: 13-year-old Melphia, who lives in a slum in Kumasi – the second largest city in the country ­– was featured in Spiegel and spoke candidly about her experience. At the time, she had been working as a prostitute for three years.  When she was 10-years-old, Melphia travelled to the city because her parents could not afford to feed her and her 12 siblings. As soon as she got off the bus in Kumasi, a man approached her. Within hours, he had sex with her – an encounter that Melphia recounts as being so agonising that she could barely walk afterwards. That man would later become her pimp.

Melphia’s life has become a humdrum routine of survival and sex. She sleeps for most of the day, and when night falls, she must go in search of men with whom to have sex. There are as many as five or more clients a night – both locals and tourists. Preference tends to be for the latter since foreigners pay more (around 25 euros compared to roughly 5 euros that the locals pay), and are less likely to display signs of violence. One of Melphia’s friends was savagely slashed with a machete. From time to time, girls turn up dead.

Like most pimps in the region, Melphia’s takes almost all of her money. The paltry amount that she is left with goes towards the rent for the tiny ramshackle hut (which she shares with four other girls); her one and only meal for the day; and her 5 minutes showers costing 20 cents in a roofless cement cell. All of her worldly possessions fit into a single black bag.

And it is not only the pimps who profit from the exploitation of these young girls. A seedy web of hotel owners, crooked authorities, and drug dealers are all entangled in the illicit industry.

In some areas, girls are kept in brothels where clients knowingly seek them out. Almost a decade ago, a newspaper ran a story about a brothel, which employed minors. The story sent shock waves around the world, prompting Ghana’s Department of Social Welfare to respond to the widespread furor. They rescued 160 girls and put them into care. Yet, just two days later, the girls were back on the streets. The daunting task of providing shelter for 160 children proved to go beyond their resources.

A report by the ECPAT stated that increased development of Ghana’s tourism industry has made Ghana one of the most popular child sex tourism destination countries in Africa. Lack of reporting mechanisms and poor enforcement of child protection legislation make it an “ideal destination” for travelling child sex offenders and the production of child pornography. Often, Ghanaian children suffer sexual abuse from expatriates and international tourists in exchange for the payment of school fees. It said:

“The government should address the increased vulnerability of children to sexual exploitation within the ongoing phenomenon of street children.

“The immigration status of children should not prevent them from accessing basic social services or otherwise leave them in a position of vulnerability to abuse and exploitation.

“The ICT policies of Ghana should expressly condemn the sexual exploitation of children online and prohibit child pornography.

“Ghana should establish a child sex offender registry and actively share this information with other countries for prevention and monitoring purposes.

“Additionally, Ghana should enhance education efforts to ensure that officials do not blame child victims of exploitation.”

Despite Ghanaian laws that outlaw child prostitution, it continues to prosper in a society, which continually turns a blind eye. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children stipulates that children must be protected from sexual abuse and exploitation. Yet, it appears that little strides are being taken to rectify the issue in Ghana.

Sometimes, desperately impoverished families with many mouths to feed – like Melphia’s – willingly send their daughters so that they can afford to buy food and other necessities. In an exposé documentary, Dr. Apkabli Honu, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sociology, University of Ghana alluded that the breakdown of extended family support systems could also be contributing to the growing number of girls on the street. He said:

“The family as the first point of socialisation is very important and so that is why it is important that we bring children [up] the way we want them to be. The extended family system is diminishing. The family system is becoming more and more nucleated. It boils down to child-rearing practices, particularly, when the child is becoming an adolescent.”

L'articolo Child Prostitution in Ghana is on the Rise proviene da InsideOver.

“My friends and I were walking by the National Palace one evening when we encountered a couple of humanitarian men. The men called us over and showed us their penises. They offered us 100 Haitian gourdes (US$2.80) and some chocolate if we would suck them. I said no, but some of the girls did it and got the money.” This was the bleak statement of a 15-years-old Haitian girl in a report by Save the Children.

Her words echo a myriad of child abuse stories committed by aid workers in crisis-stricken countries around the world. The report, which was carried out almost a decade ago, detailed the sexual exploitation of boys and girls by those who were sent to safeguarding their well-being – an irony that reeks of the ultimate betrayal.

One of the reasons that these sexual assaults go unreported is due to the fear of losing much-needed resources in desperately impoverished regions. Many children have been forced to trade sex for food and other necessities that they need to sustain their survival. A teenage girl in Côte d’Ivoire spoke about a girl entrapped by a man whom she relied on to get food. In Southern Sudan, a teenage boy divulged that even though people may be aware that it happens, they are worried that if they were to report the matter, the agencies will stop providing the care that they so heavily relied on.

Although the report failed to disclose the names of those companies that were culpable, it did confirm that it was prevalent in 23 humanitarian, peacekeeping and security organisations. This included civil humanitarian agencies such as those delivering food and nutritional assistance, care, education and health services, reconstruction, shelter, training, and livelihood support, as well as military actors providing peace and security services.

Andrew MacLeod, co-founder and director of Hear Their Cries – an organisation established to stop the abuse of this nature happening, said: “Save the Children have done little to prevent abuse by their own staff and contractors. So while their report was good to highlight the issue, one has to wonder if they too have gone silent on the issue because they have too much to hide themselves.”

Since the publishing of the report almost ten years ago, it was revealed last year that this systematic abuse of vulnerable children had continued. Former Oxfam head, Dame Barbara Stocking, confessed that she “knew for years” that sexual violations had been occurring within Oxfam, which included the hiring of prostitutes – some of whom were underage. Instead of being reprimanded in the appropriate way, the perpetrators flitted freely from one aid job to another.

Oxfam is not the only wrongdoer when it comes to failing these children; in the humanitarian world it a well-known problem. The UK’s former National Criminal Intelligence Service compared paedophiles employed in the aid world to the sex tourism industry. “This problem is out of control and much larger in scale than the abuse of the Catholic Church,” MacLeod explained. “For those who doubt that, consider this: there are more aid workers than Catholic Priests, in more countries than the Catholic church with better access to children and controlling food, water, and shelter. Some of the saddest stories are those of children who were abused and then fell pregnant. The children born of the abuse in many cases have the rights to the nationality of their father – but they do not know who the father is. So this absence is the second abuse.”

A study by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) discovered that fewer people have been donating to charities in recent times. Figures have continued to fall over the past three years with only 48 per cent still believing that charities are trustworthy. “There needs to be a better PDP plan of action – prevention, detection, and prosecution. All NGO’s should report any child abuse immediately to prosecuting authorities. Child abuse will only stop when we have prosecutions,” MacLeod, who has been the recipient of numerous humanitarian awards, advised. “International NGO’s need to remember that many countries make it an offence to have sex with a child under the age of 16 anywhere in the world. So a staff member should be reported to their home police as well as the police where the event took place.”

“Furthermore, the vast majority of victims never report these crimes. So NGOs must fund a report into the causes and cures for the massive under-reporting of abuse, and not wait for victims to come forward. They should develop policies to actively seek out victims and provide adequate compensation to the victims directly – not just through a central fund. “A DNA database of aid workers should also be created to hold aid workers to account and the implementation of independent whistle-blower structures will also be helpful.”

L'articolo Aid Workers Trading Food for Sex with Children proviene da InsideOver.

“Sometimes, you see that a little boy goes into the toilet and immediately, an adult detainee goes after them, and when the boy comes out, you don’t need to be told what has happened to him,” a former warder at Nigeria’s Maiduguri Prison told Amnesty International.

Abuse of children is not unusual in those cells. Nor is it kept a secret – so much so that it is sometimes possible to hear the abuse happening, entangled in the muffled sobs of a child.

“The condition there [in the prison] is not good for children and it is difficult to stop what is going on with the boys. The only way is for them to be taken out of there. What do you expect when you keep children with grown-up men?” the man added.

An investigation by Amnesty revealed that children are being unlawfully detained at two notorious prisons in the country – Maiduguri Maximum Security Prison and Giwa Barracks. Such incarceration of children exposes them to violations of the most ineffable kind.

Isa Sanusi, Media and Communications Manager of Amnesty International Nigeria explained: “Our investigation shows rampant cases of sexual abuse of children in Maiduguri Maximum Security Prison in the Borno state of Nigeria. We found that children are kept in the same prison cells as adults. This gave the adults an opportunity to exploit and sexually abuse the children. Officials are aware that this abuse is going on, but they refused to do anything about it. Little boys are frequently sexually abused by other inmates, and women and girls also face similar exploitation.”

Sanusi divulged that Amnesty has repeatedly asked the Nigerian authorities to work towards safeguarding children in a more effectual manner, and to put a ban on the detaining of children in the same facilities as adults.

“We are again and again calling on the Nigerian government to end this situation that allows this abuse to take place. It is illegal and harmful to keep children in the same prison or detention facility as adults. Many children are currently being held in similar situations all across Nigeria,” she said. “We call on Nigerian authorities to investigate these allegations – independently and impartially, to ensure that those found guilty will be held accountable. Nigerian authorities must provide separate detention facilities for children. It is unlawful to keep children in the same detention cell with adults.”

Amnesty also interviewed female inmates in their report, who detailed circumstances of being forced into sexual relationships with security guards to barter for food, soap, clothing, and other basic necessities. Furthermore, the women are commonly led to believe that should they engage in such activities, that they might be released. Since the soldiers are responsible for calling out the names of those due to be released, it is easy for them to read out a favoured name instead.

One former detainee alleged that she had become pregnant by a soldier. When the time was right, the man in question did the necessary documentation so that her name would be called out amongst those who set to be released.

“It is usually a case of security forces who are guarding detention facilities, exploiting women detainees in exchange for food or other things. Some women told us that they witness cases of rape and other forms of exploitation of women by security personnel. And sometimes women are promised freedom if they agree to offer sex,” Sanusi went on to say.

As a result of the Boko Haram conflict, people suspected of having any connections to it were detained in facilities all over the nation. Many of the women were kidnapped, raped, or forced into marriages by Boko Haram, and instead of being liberated, were arrested for being “Boko Haram wives”. The women continue to be imprisoned – despite this going against both Nigerian law and international human rights law.

“There is a need for authorities to ensure that all those detained on suspicion of links to Boko Haram are either freed or prosecuted before a court of law. And all the security personnel accused of sexually abusing women and children must be held responsible,” Sanusi stated.

“Nigeria’s justice system failed to ensure timely prosecution of suspects or release of those found not guilty of any offences. This is the reason why there are many detainees – some spending years in detention without trial. The women and children are being sexually exploited because of the lack of safeguards in the detention facilities, and as such, have been rendered vulnerable.

Since 2016, Amnesty has reported that seven women have given birth inside the cramped and squalid prison, and that several women, children, and babies have died on the Giwa’s compound.

L'articolo Children and Women Being Raped in Nigerian prisons proviene da InsideOver.

Rosie* (whose name has been changed for anonymity) is an 11-year-old girl with a smile that lights up a room. She dreams of getting a good education that will facilitate an upstanding career. But Rosie is not like other little girls. She was rescued, along with her sisters and younger cousins, from an appalling cybersex trafficking operation in the Philippines with the help of International Justice Mission (IJM).

Rosie never speaks of the abuse, but her teenage sisters have detailed the odious story of how their mother would force them to participate in sex shows – streamed live over the internet for foreign men to watch. Their mother has since been arrested and charged.

Tens of thousands of children in the Philippines are estimated to be trapped in the sex trade, with a growing number abused online for an international audience, due to the country’s cheap internet, high standard of English, accessible money transfer services, and widespread impoverishment. The tropical destination has become a hotspot for depraved online sexual predators from Western places such as the USA, Europe, Canada, and Australia.

IJM is the world’s largest international anti-slavery organisation that works globally to combat slavery, trafficking, and other forms of violent abuse. In the Philippines, the organisation has worked unremittingly with local government and law enforcement to find, rescue, and rehabilitate children from cybersex assaults, and to hold perpetrators accountable.

David Westlake, CEO of International Justice Mission UK said: “Online sexual exploitation of children is a form of sex trafficking which was unimaginable before the digital age. Whereas before, Western customers would have to physically travel to the Philippines to abuse children, now paedophiles and predators, anywhere in the world, can go online and wire a secure payment to an adult who sets up a live “show”. Boys and girls – some under 2 years old – are abused or forced to perform sex acts in front of a live webcam for paying customers.

“Unlike bars or brothels with a permanent address, children suffering online sexual exploitation can be moved to and abused in any location with an Internet connection and a webcam, or just a mobile phone.”

The FBI estimates that at any given time, there are 750,000 adults looking to abuse children in some 40,000 public chat rooms around the globe. And according to UNICEF, the Philippines is “the epicentre” of the live-stream sexual abuse trade and the “number one global source of child pornography.”

In 2018, the Southeast Asian nation received about 60,000 reports of online child sexual exploitation – a staggering three times more than in 2017. Data from IJM showed that as many as 80% of cybersex victims in the Philippines are underage and of those, half were 12 years old or younger. The youngest reported child to have been rescued was a 3-month-old baby.

“It will take a strong, united, and closely coordinated response involving international law enforcement teams, NGOs, and global governments to fight and end this gruesome crime today,” Westlake explained.

“When IJM started working in the Philippines in 2000, we partnered with the government to stop brothel owners and traffickers from exploiting children in the commercial sex industry—rescuing children from bars that sold them for sex and bringing perpetrators to justice. Studies have shown the number of children available for purchase on streets and in bars once notorious for sex trafficking plummeted between 75% and 86% in the cities where IJM worked to equip the police to tackle this devastating crime.”

Disturbingly, the culprits who conduct and perpetuate the abuse are frequently trusted adults such as family members. The children are often coerced into the reprehensible acts by their own parents, who tell them that it is harmless since it is being only being shown online. The abuse can range from posing in front of the camera to engaging in a sexual act with another minor–or even an adult.

“When justice systems are equipped to protect vulnerable children and abusers are held to account, perpetrators realise that they can’t get away with their crimes and exploitation becomes too risky. That’s when the problem decreases,” Westlake added.

“This crime is dark and complicated, but as the justice system in the Philippines is equipped to protect vulnerable children, and international law enforcement invest in tackling this crime, cybersex trafficking can be stopped.”

In February, the Philippines Internet Crimes Against Child Center (PICACC) was launched and is supported by officials from the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA), and the IJM. The task force also has connections with authorities in the US, Canada, Germany. Sweden, and the Netherlands.

L'articolo Thousands of Children in the Philippines Being Trafficked Online proviene da InsideOver.