An elderly man is walking through a slum market in Thailand carrying a clean, well dressed baby in his arms. The child has a red ribbon around its wrist. This child is for sale.
Child trafficking is rampant throughout the world, but particularly in India, southeast Asia and southern Europe. The US Justice Department (2004) reports that at least 300,000 children are traded across international borders each year.
Child trafficking is the enslavement of children for the purpose of exploitation. Child trafficking takes many forms such as:
- forced labour, including dangerous labour
- various forms of sexual exploitation
- military conscription
- illicit adoption
- forced child marriage
All children who are trafficked are at a heightened risk of being abused sexually, physically and emotionally.
Children are more at risk of being trafficked if they are female (70%, ibid), come from rural, poor, sick or dysfunctional households, have ethnic minority status, are between the ages of 12-16 or good looking, or lack education or vocational training.
Children are sold like commodities into trafficking by family members, neighbours or community members. The networks into which the children are sold represent a multibillion dollar industry that operates with virtual impunity within and across international borders.
Hope for the Nations takes the view that all child trafficking is preventable. To that end, we work with local partners towards the prevention of child trafficking through interventions that support families and communities to recognize threats, create alternative sources of income, and protect children. We also work in the area of rehabilitating children who have been trafficked. We welcome you to become informed and get involved in one of our many projects!
Safe Haven Village is a collection of children's homes, education programs, micro enterprises and small businesses. This village is a safe community which provides 'at risk' children protection from the evils of trafficking. The children in Safe Haven Village have either been recovered from the trafficking network or were at risk of being sold.
Despite the growing recognition that the trafficking of children for labor and sexual exploitation is a grave human rights violation that reduces children to mere commodities, child trafficking is still widespread in much of Cambodia. The Poipet area is particularly vulnerable as it is a major throughfare for migration between Cambodia and Thailand.
Our partner organization, CHO, is a Cambodian Christian NGO based in Poipet, Cambodia. Its vision is to see a network of strong, hope-filled communities where adequate mental, physical, and spiritual needs are met. CHO believes children to be at the heart of this vision for Cambodia and so strives to educate, empower and equip children as leaders of the future.
[Click here to learn more about our partners]
Our partner organization, Be A Hero, has the mandate to create heroes out of every day, ordinary people by providing them with opportunities to change the world, one child at a time.
Our partner is Christian Services Association, a non-profit society founded in Canada in 1973 and in the USA in 1984. It is the parent ministry of Extreme Prophetic, a 501(c)3 founded in 2004 in Arizona.