Combating Sexual Exploitation of Children

Every child matters. They deserve a pleasant and safe childhood leading to functional and exultant adulthoods. In order to do so, PEaCE implemented a project to combat sexual exploitation of children.

Children regardless of age, gender or where they live are vulnerable to sexual exploitation. It is a growing concern in today’s society because children become prey to child sexual perpetrators, most often without their knowledge. Sexual exploitation of children often goes unaddressed and underreported for various reasons. Thus, it is a social issue that needs immediate attention and intervention.

Protecting the younger generation from social evil is a combined effort where every single individual in society has a role to play. Child sexual exploitation has ripple effects that can last up to generations to come if not eradicated in its prime.

With the intention of bringing sexual exploitation of children to the limelight and eradicating it, a three year project was initiated by PEaCE in 2017 with Lemonaid ChariTea as the funding body to Combat Sexual Exploitation of Children.

Combatting sexual exploitation of children is a project that will target various audiences within the social system and every stakeholder that can potentially contribute towards protecting children. This will include children, youth, family and community members, civil society organizations, companies associated with ICT, tourism and travel, and law enforcement authorities.

Similar to every project done by PEaCE, the protection of children is at the heart of combatting sexual exploitation of children as well. Our desired goal is to create a violence free, peaceful environment for children affirming at zero tolerance against all forms of sexual exploitation.

By the year 2020 we intend to have reached approximately 1 million citizens around the country as we believe everyone has a duty to the protection of our younger generation – children. A tremendous outcome expected from this initiative is to increase the number of children that would reach adulthood safely by 50% whilst decreasing the incidence of reported child abuse by 15%.

In the initiative to combat sexual exploitation of children, PEaCE is taking various steps towards reaching its goal by raising awareness and taking necessary steps to ensure the safety and protection of marginalized children and child abuse survivors. Due to lack of knowledge on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC), raising awareness is given top priority. This will be done through various methods such as workshops, public awareness programs, capacity building programs and we also provide legal and educational support, and counseling to victims of CSEC.

We envision four main objectives from the initiative to combat CSEC:

1. Minimized incidents of sexual exploitation of children online and in travel and tourism.
2. Raised the consciousness of children, families, communities and the state and non-state actors awakened on sexual exploitation of children online and in travel and tourism.
3. Strictly promoted the enforcement of the criminal justice system against perpetrators of child sexual exploitation, thereby ensuring justice to child victims and child survivors.