Commercial sexual exploitation of children in the Asian region, particularly in India, is a disturbingly rising trend. The economic growth in these regions has seen a major boom in the recent past and with it a sharp increase in the divide between the rich and the poor. The poor, generally people with little or no commercially viable skills, often become hapless victims of human trafficking. Many of these victims are children, who are easily one of the softest targets for being sexually exploited. This abuse affects the very fibre of these children, affecting them not just physically but also wrecking them mentally and emotionally.

Their own families introduce most of these children to prostitution, while others are lured by promises of wealth; some are kidnapped, and all end up as sexual slaves. Because of abject poverty, families end up selling their children like they sell their cattle or poultry in order to survive. Many of these families rationalize this heinous act by assumptions that their children will then find work and not have to live in poverty. Those who do not cooperate are harassed, drugged, beaten, and raped. They are then thrown into brothels where they are further exploited. These children are forced to live under unhygienic and inhumane conditions, barely acquiring even the minimal standards of living. About a dozen children have to survive in a 10 x 10 room. They are not provided with any medical help or checkups. They are forced to work round the clock and are excused only by the time when they are physically destroyed. Then they are dumped and left to die.

Where, on the one hand, globalization gives a kick to the business in modern times, tradition backs it. In many Indian societies, the practice of Devdasi is widely accepted. Devdasi is a custom where the young girls, often poor, are “married” to the “gods”. They are then forced into becoming ‘religious prostitutes’, sleeping with the priests and the other powerful members of the community. Such practice, though well known, is also acceptable because it is licensed by the religion and the powerful.

A Study reveals that India's child sex industry is the second largest in the world after the Philippines and 14% of sex workers are children aged 10-17. The study further discovered:

20% of the one lakh prostitutes were children.

25% of the child prostitutes had been abducted and sold.

6% had been raped and sold.

8% had been sold by their fathers after forcing them into incestuous relationships.

2 lakh minor girls between ages 9yrs-20yrs were brought every year from Nepal to India and 20,000 of them are in Bombay brothels. These girls are much prized for their fair skin.

15% to 18% are adolescents between 13 yrs and 18 yrs.
(Information by: Indian Health Organization)

If this makes you wince, there’s more…

According to an ILO estimate, 15% of the country's estimated 2.3 million prostitutes are children. The traffic is controlled largely by organized crime. (US Dept of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2000, February 2001)
Recent studies indicate that of the estimated 9,000,000 prostitutes working in India, some 30% or 2,700,000 are children. A further 10% reported that they had started their 'career' in prostitution before they were 18 years of age. A large number of these children are trafficked from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal. (ECPAT International, A Step Forward, 1999)

30% of India's 1 million prostitutes are girls below the age of 16 years. (SPARC, The State of Pakistan's Children, 1999, citing "Child Prostitution Increasing in Indo-Pak", The Frontier Post, 25 November 1998)

An NGO states that the number of children in flesh trade is increasing by 8-10% every year ("The Young and the Damned", The Week, 4 August 1996, reprinted in ECPAT Bulletin, July 1996)

A report of the Central Advisory Committee on Child Prostitution, published in May 1994 says that 12 to 15% of the prostitutes in Mumbai, Delhi, Madras, Calcutta, Hyderabad and Bangalore are children. It is estimated that 30% of the prostitutes in these cities are aged below 20 and nearly half of them had become commercial sex workers when they were minors. 86% of the prostitutes come from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Conservative estimates put the number of children in India suffering commercial sex abuse at 300,000. ("The Young and the Damned", The Week, 4 August 1996, reprinted in ECPAT Bulletin, July 1996)

In India, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu are considered "high supply zones" for women in prostitution. Bijapur, Belgaum and Kolhapur are common districts from which women migrate to the big cities, as part of an organized trafficking network. (CATW Fact Book, citing Meena Menon, "Women in India's Trafficking Belt", 30 March 1998, citing the Central Social Welfare Board).

It is important for us to understand that it is a loss of a life, gravely affecting the future citizens of our country who have an equal right to live, just like any of us do. The after effects of these cruel, inhumane activities leave them fearful, battered and devastated, and it also snatches away from them their playful childhood, snuffing out any moment of joy from their lives.