Child labor in
El Salvador, 1990 Child trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of children for the purpose of exploitation. Children are trafficked for purposes such as of commercial sexual exploitation, bonded labour, camel jockeying, child domestic labour, drug couriering,
child soldiering, illegal adoptions, and begging. It is difficult to obtain reliable estimates concerning the number of children trafficked each year, primarily due to the covert and criminal nature of the practice. The
International Labour Organization estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked each year. Child labor refers to the employment of children in any work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, or is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful. The
International Labour Organization considers such labor to be a form of exploitation and abuse of children. Child labor refers to those occupations which infringe the development of children (due to the nature of the job or lack of appropriate regulation) and does not include age appropriate and properly supervised jobs in which minors may participate. According to ILO, globally, around 215 million children work, many full-time. Many of these children do not go to school, do not receive proper nutrition or care, and have little or no time to play. More than half of them are exposed to the worst forms of child labor, such as
child prostitution,
drug trafficking,
armed conflicts and other hazardous environments. There exist several international instruments protecting children from child labor, including the
Minimum Age Convention, 1973 and the
Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention. More girls under 16 work as
domestic workers than any other category of child labor, often sent to cities by parents living in rural poverty such as in
restaveks in Haiti.
Forced adoption Children in poverty have been removed from their families with their welfare being used an argument to do so. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Norway, which disproportionately removes children of immigrant background and argues it gives them a better future, was mistaking poverty for neglect and that there are other ways to help destitute children. In
Switzerland, between the 1850s and the mid-20th century, hundreds of thousands of children mostly from poor or single parents were forcefully removed from their parents by the authorities, and sent to work on farms, living with new families. They were known as
contract children or
Verdingkinder. Removing children of ethnic minorities from their families to be adopted by those of the dominant ethnic group has been used as a method of
forced assimilation. The
Stolen Generations in
Australia involved
Australian Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander children, while the
Sixties Scoop affected Canadian indigenous children. The
Canadian Indian residential school system also involved
First Nations,
Métis and
Inuit children, who often suffered severe abuse. As part of the
persecution of Uyghurs in China, in 2017 alone at least half a million children were also forcefully separated from their families, and placed in pre-school camps with prison-style surveillance systems and 10,000 volt electric fences.
Child harvesting It is speculated that for-profit
orphanages are increasing and push for children to join even though demographic data show that even the poorest extended families usually take in children whose parents have died, and that it would be cheaper to aid close relatives who want to take in the orphans. Experts maintain that separating children from their families often harm children's
development. Adoption fees result in such orphanages and similar networks such as "baby factories" in
Nigeria coercing or abducting and raping women to sell their babies for adoption. During the
One Child Policy in China, when women were only allowed to have one child, local governments would often allow the woman to give birth and then they would take the baby away. Child traffickers, often paid by the government, would sell the children to orphanages that would arrange international adoptions worth tens of thousands of dollars, turning a profit for the government.
Infanticide Under natural conditions, mortality rates for girls under five are slightly lower than boys for biological reasons. However, after birth, neglect and diverting resources to male children can lead to some countries having a skewed ratio with more boys than girls, with such practices killing an approximate 230,000 girls under five in India each year. While sex-selective abortion is more common among the higher income population, who can access medical technology, abuse after birth, such as infanticide and abandonment, is more common among the lower income population.
Baby farming is practice of accepting custody of a child in exchange for payment. As it became profitable, baby 'farmers' would neglect or murder the babies to keep costs down.
Illegitimacy and its attendant
social stigma were usually the impetus for a mother's decision to give her child to a baby farmer. Methods proposed to deal with the issue are
baby hatches to drop off unwanted babies and
safe-haven laws, which decriminalize abandoning babies unharmed.
Body modification ) Female genital mutilation (FGM) is defined by the
World Health Organization (WHO) as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons." It is practiced mainly in 28 countries in Africa, and in parts of Asia and the Middle East. FGM is mostly found in a geographical area ranging across Africa, from east to west – from Somalia to Senegal, and from north to south – from Egypt to Tanzania. FGM is most often carried out on young girls aged between infancy and 15 years. The countries which choose to ratify the
Istanbul Convention, the first legally binding instrument in Europe in the field of violence against women and domestic violence, are bound by its provisions to ensure that FGM is criminalized.
Labia stretching is the act of lengthening the
labia minora and may be initiated in girls from ages 8 to 14 years. The practice of using hot stones or other implements to flatten the breast tissue of pubescent girls is widespread in Cameroon and exists elsewhere in West Africa as well. It is believed to have come with that diaspora to Britain, where the government declared it a form of child abuse and said that it could be prosecuted under existing assault laws.
Sexual rites of passage A tradition often performed in some regions in Africa involves a man
initiating a girl into womanhood by having sex with her, usually after her first period, in a practice known as "sexual cleansing". The rite can last for three days and there is an increased risk of contracting
sexually transmitted infections as the ritual requires condoms not be worn.
Violence against girl students are common In some parts of the world, girls are strongly discouraged from attending school. They are sometimes attacked by members of the community if they do so. In parts of South Asia,
girls schools are set on fire by vigilante groups. Such attacks are common in
Afghanistan and
Pakistan. Notable examples include the kidnapping of hundreds of female students in
Chibok in 2014 and
Dapchi in 2018.
Child marriage A child marriage is a marriage in which one or both participants are minors, often before the age of
puberty. Child marriages are common in many parts of the world, especially in parts of Asia and Africa. The United Nations considers those below the age of 18 years to be incapable of giving valid consent to marriage and therefore regards such marriages as a form of
forced marriage; and that marriages under the age of majority have significant potential to constitute a form of child abuse. In many countries, such practices are lawful or – even where laws prohibit child marriage – often unenforced.
India has more child brides than any other nation, with 40% of the world total. The countries with the highest rates of child marriage are:
Niger (75%),
Central African Republic and
Chad (68%), and
Bangladesh (66%). .
Bride kidnapping, also known as marriage by abduction or marriage by capture, has been practiced around the world and throughout history, and sometimes involves minors. It is still practiced in parts of Central Asia, the Caucasus region, and some African countries. In Ethiopia, marriage by abduction is widespread, and many young girls are kidnapped this way. In most countries, bride kidnapping is considered a criminal offense rather than a valid
form of marriage. In many cases, the groom also
rapes his kidnapped bride, in order to prevent her from returning to her family due to shame.
Money marriage refers to a marriage where a girl, usually, is married off to a man to settle debts owed by her parents. The female is referred to as a "money wife".
Sacred prostitution often involves girls being pledged to priests or those of higher castes, such as
fetish slaves in West Africa.
Violence against children with superstitious accusations Customary beliefs in witchcraft are common in many parts of the world, even among the educated. Anthropologists have argued that those with disabilities are often viewed as bad omens as raising a child with a disability in such communities are an insurmountable hurdle. For example, in southern Ethiopia, children with physical abnormalities are considered to be ritually impure or
mingi, the latter are believed to exert an evil influence upon others, so disabled infants have traditionally been disposed of without a proper burial. A 2010
UNICEF report notes that accusations against children are a recent phenomenon with women and the elderly usually being accused 10–20 years ago. Greater urbanization and the growing economic burden of raising children is attributed as a factor. , between 25,000 and 50,000 children in
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, had been accused of
witchcraft and abandoned. In
Malawi it is common practice to accuse children of witchcraft and many children have been abandoned, abused and even killed as a result. In the Nigerian,
Akwa Ibom State and
Cross River State about 15,000 children were branded as witches. This practice is also found in communities in the Amazon. Children who are specifically at risk include orphans, street-children,
albinos, disabled children, children who are unusually gifted, children who were born prematurely or in unusual positions, twins, children of single mothers and children who express gender identity issues often by being buried alive or left to starve. ==Ethics==