Issues

The sexual exploitation of children is a horrible crime and violation of their human rights. Sexual exploitation can be non-commercial or commercial:

Non- commercial                 
eg: in-family abuse, rape, pedophilia and forced marriages.
                  
Commercial   
eg: prostitution, sex tourism and pornography.

• An estimated two million children are currently enslaved in the global commercial sex trade. An untold number of others are sexually abused non-commercially. Most cases are not reported or prosecuted.
• Sexually exploited children are severely wounded physically and emotionally. Many acquire diseases including HIV/AIDS, and experience rejection by their families and communities in addition to fear, shame and despair.
• Thailand, Cambodia, India and Brazil have some of the highest rates of commercial sexual exploitation of children. But it happens in all countries.
• Childwise estimates that 25% of sex tourists worldwide are Americans, including U.S. military personnel overseas.
• In Australia adult sex slaves exist and are forced to work in brothels to repay debts supposedly incurred in bringing them into the country. This can involve working seven days a week at brothels for six months for little or no money. According to ECPAT (Childwise in Australia), international crime syndicates have been trafficking up to 300 Thai women to Australia each year.

• There are an estimated 246 million child labourers in the world.
  
• Not all child work is child labour. Child Labour is work that is harmful, e.g. working:
    *  too many hours
    *  for not enough pay
    *  in dangerous conditions
    *  or with too much responsibility
  
• Child labourers often work as domestic workers in industry (sweatshops), or on the streets in job like garbage picking or shoe shining.
  
• usually children work because they are too poor not to, or because they don't have other options (e.g.: their parents can't afford for them to attend, or there simply are no schools)

• Most child soldiers are between 14 and 18 and are forced into involvement in conflict or see no other option but to “volunteer”.
• Child soldiering is made physically possible by the availability of light-weight weapons ('small arms'), typically those produced by developed nations.
• For example: since 1986, 20,000 children in northern Uganda have been abducted by rebels and cruelly forced to fight in a civil war that has been raging for 18 years.
• In 2006 the UN estimate 250,000 children worldwide have been actively involved in armed conflicts.
• Many children trafficked into armed conflict have had to participate in front line battle and the executions of other children, soldiers or civilians. It's not just children with Guns. Other activities could include:
    *  human mine detectors
    *  suicide missions
    *  carrying supplies 
    *  spies, messengers or lookouts
    *  domestic slaves for other soldiers
    *  ongoing sexually exploitation  by other soldiers
• According to this Save the Children UK report Approximately 40% (120,000) of child soldiers are girls.
• In Ivory Coast, the Liberation Forces of the Great West, a pro-government militia dominated by Liberians, recruited more than 9,000 people from refugee camps, including children as young as eight.
• Myanmar is unique in the Asia region, as the only country where Government armed forces forcibly recruit and use children between the ages of 12 and 18. 
• According to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers in 2003, child soldier issues remain part of the gross abuse of human rights in 18 different countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. There is an estimated:
  - 70,000 children in the Myanmar army.
  - 11,000 children in armed groups in Columbia.
  - 100,000 children believed to be involved in hostilities in Africa.
• Read this Call for Action to work with child soldiers in West Africa. 

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