Child prostitution- A threat to development

Article: Salome Donkor
The story narrated by an 11-year-old alleged child prostitute during interrogation at the Greater Accra Regional offices of the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service was pathetic and sounded incredible. She described in chilling details how she serviced her clients and charged them various sums of money depending on the size of their male genital organ.
She also said she took alcoholic drinks laced with some drugs to enable her to sleep during the day, to psyche her up for her ‘night duties’
According to Chief Inspector Irene Oppong, Public Relations Officer of the Greater Accra DOVVSU, 13 children, aged between 11 and 15, were arrested by the police in some parts of Accra and brought to the unit for their alleged involvement in child prostitution.
She said they were sent to the Shelter for Abused Children at Osu, but one of the girls aged 11, attempted suicide, for what she termed as deplorable conditions at the shelter.
When the Ghana Police raided Soldier Bar, a brothel near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra, in May 2008, 160 commercial sex workers were arrested, and out of this, 60 of them confessed to being under 16 years. This confirms the incidence of sex business among children.
It is not surprising that an unconfirmed online report from the Globalmarch website states that there are at least 125 brothels in and around Accra that employ children.
Chief Inspector Oppong said last month, the Nima Police arrested six children suspected to be engaged in prostitution and pointed out that some of the children also operated around the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Agbogbloshie, Konkomba market and Tema Station, while others travelled from the Eastern and Central regions to and from Accra daily to engage in commercial sex trade.
She said some of the children, who started the practice from the Kumasi Race Course as apprentice, were later lured to Accra after they had been trafficked to the city by women traffickers who are difficult to trace.
She said in the case of those arrested at Agbogbloshie, the children trafficked from Kumasi know the woman who brought them to Accra only as auntie or sister, and that had made it very difficult for the police to trace her. That, she said was in spite of the fact that the woman uses the children to trade in sex and collects GH¢20 from each of them every three days.
Commercial sex trade among children is a form of forced labour whereby children aged below 18 are forced to have sex with adults and juveniles in return for money, part of which is paid to a third party who usually acts as the mediator. Most of the time the mediator tended out to be “madams” who were engaged in child trafficking.
Reports from parts of Accra indicate that the practice, which is a violation of the rights and dignity of victims and tends to have traumatic effects on them, involves children as young as 11 years, despite the health implications and other risks involved.
The United Nations declared 1979 as the International Year of the Child, which was referred to as the 1979 Declaration. The declaration called upon countries, local authorities, civil society organisations and parents to recognise and strive for the protection of the rights of children.
The declaration also influenced the passage of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in November 1989 and Ghana responded positively to the initiatives of the United Nations in being the first country to ratify the convention.
The adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 provides a clear statement prohibiting all forms of violence against children, reaffirming previous human rights instruments.
However, the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy asserts that millions of children throughout the world are victims of violence. They continue to be abused, exploited and trafficked under different categories of violence to children, from abuse in the family and institutions, to organised sexual abuse, including child prostitution, sex tourism and child pornography.
In 1998, Parliament passed the Children's Act (ACT 560) which provided a list of enforceable children's rights and obligations of parents towards their wards.
Writing on the topic ‘Child prostitution and the age of sexual responsibility’ Nana Oye Lithur, the Africa Regional Co-ordinator of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiatives, pointed out that the laws of the country stipulated that children under age 16 may be willing to have sex, but they cannot legally have sex because they do not have the legal capacity to consent to have sex at that age. This is because a person becomes sexually responsible in Ghana at age 16. This means that any child in Ghana who is not 16 cannot give consent to sexual intercourse.
That is why any man or woman who has sex with a girl or boy who is below 16 years commits the offence of defilement. That child who is not yet 16 years cannot agree to have sex with the man or women because the child does not have that legal power or authority to give consent for sex when he or she is not 16 years.
The causes of this form of inhuman form of exploitation against children could be complex. Could it be due to severe poverty, low value attached to education, family dysfunction, a cultural obligation to help support the family or the need to earn money to simply survive that make children vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation.
Social workers also say there are other non-economic factors that also push children into commercial sexual exploitation. Children who are at the greatest risk of becoming victims of the practice are those that have previously experienced physical or sexual abuse, a family environment of little protection, where caregivers are absent or where there is a high level of violence or alcohol or drug consumption, which induces boys and girls to run away from home making them highly susceptible to abuse.
Chief Inspector Oppong said although the practice was a criminal offence that warranted the prosecution of clients and the mediators since it amounted to defilement, indecent sexual assault and having unnatural carnal knowledge of a child, it was difficult for the police to arrest the perpetrators because they operated under cover.
The child involved is treated as a sexual object and as a commercial object and it involves children in the urban poor, where the victims are most disadvantaged and in some cities in Ghana.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 182 classifies commercial sexual exploitation of children as one of the worst forms of child labour in the world. Child prostitution and child pornography are examples of commercial sexual exploitation of children.
This year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) was celebrated on the theme “Women and men united to end violence against women and girls”. The relevance of the theme cannot be overemphasised considering the fact that men and boys in particular, who patronise the services of these child prostitutes need to demonstrate that the practice, which constitutes exploitation against children, is not an acceptable behaviour and they need to speak against it, be role models to younger men and mentor them not to perpetrate domestic violence in any form.
Article 25 (1) of the 1992 Constitution stipulates that “All persons shall have the right to equal educational opportunities and facilities and with a view to achieving the full realisation of the right” 25 (1) (a) states that “basic education shall be free, compulsory and available to all”.
Sections of the Constitution also enjoins Parliament to enact such laws that are necessary to ensure that “parents undertake their natural right and obligation of care, maintenance and upbringing of their children in co-operation with such institutions as Parliament may, by law, prescribe in such manner that in all cases the interest of the children are paramount”.
Apart from these constitutional provisions, Ghana was the first country to ratify the International Convention on the Rights of Children, while at the national level the Children’s Act 1998 (Act 560) was promulgated to protect the welfare and interest of Ghanaian children.
It is however unfortunate that despite all these measures some children continue to suffer negative acts that constitute criminal practices that demean, degrade and threaten the physical and psychological integrity of children and subject them to emotional trauma.
The Executive Director of Challenging Heights, a child-related non-governmental organisation, Mr James Kofi Annan, called for the enforcement of the Children’s Act.
He said said it was necessary for the Department of Social Welfare, Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs and related agencies to identify the location of homes and centres and shealters for children and ensure that they operate with the necessary permits to protect the rights of the child.
This protection, he explained, should include giving the children food, health facilities, shelter, and education to enhance their integration into society, adding that the peculiar need of the child could also be identified and the necessary counselling services offered to such victims when they are rescued.
Mr Annan urged the government to resource the Department of Social Welfare to enable it to establish more centres in the country to take care of abused children who are rescued.
It is important to understand that proper child care requires that children are taken care of by family members and the society at large to enable them to benefit from the love and warmth of their families.
Parents, governmental and non-governmental organisations and child-related organisations, need to be more responsible and provide the children with the needed care and protection.