A/HRC/43/40 2019 and Model National Response serve as guidance and support for national efforts to end violence against children. 24 She notes, however, that technology-facilitated violence often co-occurs with other forms of violence and human rights violations that children experience in their daily life. 25 While specialized responses are necessary to approach online violence as a distinct phenomenon, it should not distract from addressing the problem of sale and sexual exploitation in a comprehensive manner, embedded in holistic child protection strategies. 2. Sexual exploitation of children in or for prostitution 35. Children worldwide continue to be sold and trafficked, within their own countries and across borders, for the purposes of sexual exploitation, including prostitution and the production of child sexual abuse material. Poverty, conflict, migration, homelessness, discrimination, exclusion and disability are among the factors that increase children’s vulnerability to these crimes. Young girls and boys are lured with false promises of legal work and subsequently coerced into the commercial sex trade in foreign countries. In many cases, children are exploited through a combination of sexual and labour exploitation, including domestic servitude, forced labour, begging and forced marriage. 36. Social media applications are reportedly used to facilitate the sale of and trafficking in children,26 and it is extremely difficult to detect them as victims are often isolated and cannot report crimes. 37. In 2016, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated that 1 million children were subjected to commercial sexual exploitation.27 The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that 28 per cent of trafficking victims worldwide detected in 2016 were children.28 Furthermore, 72 per cent of all girls and 23 per cent of all boys were trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Given the lack of comprehensive data at the national levels and taking into account the hidden nature of these crimes, the real scale of the problem is likely underestimated. 38. The Special Rapporteur notes progress made with regard to legislative and policy measures focused on the prevention of trafficking in human beings, including children, and the overall improvement of capacity to detect these crimes by law enforcement agencies in some States. However, due to the lack of age- and gender-appropriate identification and referral mechanisms, often child victims of trafficking for sale and sexual exploitation are easily overlooked and are subject to “repatriation” as illegal immigrants.29 Those who are not returned often lack integration support and prospects for the future, which puts them at a higher risk of exploitation. 39. Furthermore, corruption, limited human and technical resources of law enforcement agencies, the absence of trained social workers and adequate child protection services, and the shortage of child-sensitive justice systems are highlighted by various stakeholders as persistent barriers to effective investigation and prosecution of these crimes. 3. Sexual exploitation of children in the context of travel and tourism 40. The issue of the sexual exploitation of children in the context of travel and tourism was examined in a 2013 report of the Special Rapporteur as an emerging trend (A/HRC/22/54). With further growth of the tourist industry, increasing demand keeps fuelling these crimes. The situation is further exacerbated by the expansion of ICT used by criminal networks as an advertising platform. The sale and sexual exploitation of children in the context of travel and tourism has become a form of income-generating activity in 24 25 26 27 28 29 WePROTECT Global Alliance, Global Threat Assessment 2019: Working Together to End the Sexual Exploitation of Children Online (National Archives, London, 2019); and WePROTECT Global Alliance, “Preventing and tackling child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA): a model national response”, November 2016 (available at www.weprotect.org/the-model-national-response). See the submission from the UNICEF Innocenti Office of Research. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Study on the Effects of New Information Technologies on the Abuse and Exploitation of Children (Vienna, 2015), p. x. ILO, Global Estimates of Child Labour: Results and Trends, 2012–2016 (Geneva, 2017), p. 13. UNODC, “Almost a third of trafficking victims are children: UNODC report”, 21 December 2016. See the submission from ECPAT UK. 7