This week’s subject matter on child exploitation and sex labor contained a lot of weighty inquiries and touched on grave issues. To hear the girls’ histories of sexual abuse and slavery stirred feelings of frustration within me. How is it possible that so much can be taken away from these girls and boys—their freedom, their childhoods, etc.—and yet so little is being done about it? In this blog I hope to discuss the circumstances that lead children into exploitative trades like slavery and sex work, while also drawing connections with previous coursework to ultimately propose channels of discussion for success in eradicating sex work and slavery.
Poverty
In the documentary film Modern Slavery: Captive Servants and Child Prostitution, and in “Working with Child Prostitutes in Thailand: Problems of practice and interpretation”, as well as in other research, it seems there is extensive evidence for poverty as a driving factor behind exploitative pursuits such as child slavery and prostitution. I was shocked to understand that in many circumstances it is actually the children’s’ families that introduce them to sex labor or sell them into slavery. In other words, most of the time it is not by tragic accident that these girls or boys get sold into slavery or become prostitutes; rather, these circumstances are a consequence of the reality of poverty, of a lack of education, and so forth. Many times these families and their children lack the economic stability, and so they find ‘opportunity’, for example, in prostitution to support themselves—or in an offer from a stranger to take the child to another country where promises of prosperity are seemingly guaranteed. This point is especially poignant in Montgomery’s discussion of her own anthropological research on child prostitution in Thailand, where she found that the stance on child prostitution, of both the parents and the children, was one of acceptance—where prostitution was a viable means of fulfilling one’s obligation to take care of their parents, to support a household.
Culture and Society: Bun Khun
Subsequently, and as I have alluded to in the preceding paragraph, children may be compelled into prostitution or slavery to fulfill traditional cultural and social expectancies and desires. According to Montgomery, in Thailand, children are expected to work and to provide income for their parents. A son or daughter’s worth is measured by this cultural standard of ‘bun khun’, where “children are said to owe a debt of gratitude to their parents and especially their mothers; they should be the ones to repay their parents for giving them life and it is part of children’s duty to support their parents in whatever way they can” (Montgomery, 2007; Mulder, 1979; Tantiwiramanond and Pandey, 1989). Also connected to this example, and to social and cultural elements as presented in previous course content, is the idea that these kinds of circumstances are highly cyclical. In her work, Montgomery writes, “In eight of the 14 households that contained child prostituted, the children were the second or third generation to have worked as prostitutes. Their grandmothers worked with American servicemen during the later stages of the Vietnam War, their mothers worked with tourists and the children worked for child sex-tourists” (2007). In the setting as described by Montgomery, men play little to no role in family connections and the household is controlled by the matriarch.
Intervention: Government and NGOs
What I found most interesting throughout the media presented is that there was no clear-cut method for handling issues of child slavery and prostitution, and the prevalence of these exploitative trades remains huge. In the media presented throughout this week, it seemed clear that many of the governments had no means to deal with this. Not only was much of the work left up to NGOs, but also when the government did intervene, it tended to support the status quo—either by treating sex workers as criminals, or by turning a blind eye. Either way, it seems that not much is being done by the government, and what little good that is being done, has been accomplished on part of NGOs like Gary Haugen’s International Justice Mission, where tactics like sting operations are used to extract kids from dangerous situations like sex labor.
Conclusion
The issues of child sex labor and child slavery remain significant in today’s world. These underground industries are fueled by poverty and, as Dr. Montgomery might hesitantly admit, cultural and social norms and traditions. But the question is, by what methods do we go about abolishing these trades? Even though the tactics discussed in Dateline’s Children for Sale, seem extreme, I believe that these tactics are necessary for initiating the abolishment of exploitative trades like prostitution and slavery. The NGOs that employ extreme tactics like sting operations and ones that work to educate, have begun to create positive effects.
On another level, however, social welfare programs in each of these countries vehemently need to be established in order to educate and economically support families exposed and prone to sex labor and slavery. Additionally, the government needs to put competent legal infrastructures in place for prosecuting and sentencing individuals involved in sex labor and slavery—it should not be the case that prostitutes and sex laborers are considered the criminal in these circumstances. This is where further research needs to be done. What kinds of programs would be successful in societies constrained poverty, by cultural traditions, by currently inactive governments?
Works Cited
Modern Slavery: Captive Servants and Child Prostitution. Films Media Group, 2008. Films On Demand. Accessed 18 April 2011 http://digital.films.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/PortalPlaylists.aspx?aid=1850&xtid=41369.
Montgomery, H. (2007). Working with child prostitutes in Thailand: Problems of practice and interpretation. Childhood, 14(4), 415.
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