A/HRC/31/58
case in travel and tourism where the defining characteristic of their act is the targeting of
child victims in a different geographical setting to theirs. An essential feature of those
offenders is their knowledge or belief that their actions will go unpunished. Moreover, the
economic and cultural differences at the heart of the exploitation define the actions of the
offender. It is important to note that the expression “child sex tourism” to describe this type
of demand is outdated and leaves out other categories of offenders who are travelling, such
as business travellers, foreign workers, supporters travelling in the context of major
sporting events, volunteers, government employees deployed overseas and expatriates on
extended travel or residing abroad.23 In addition, military servicemen stationed abroad have
fuelled demand for prostitution, with several children being sexually exploited in the
process. Military personnel who are preferential offenders have also taken advantage of
their position to sexually exploit children. 24
33.
Organized crime groups, which usually fulfil the role of facilitators to service the
demand for child sexual exploitation, can also include contact offenders. The perpetrators
may be preferential or situational offenders and will sexually abuse the child directly as part
of the enslavement or grooming process. In general, the involvement of organized crime
and the subsequent sexual exploitation of children is motivated by the vulnerability of the
child rather than a specific sexual interest in children. 25
2.
Intermediate level
34.
The intermediate level of the demand for child sexual exploitation corresponds to
those who act as facilitators between offenders and children, as well as those who provide
and promote their exploitation. This level of demand is composed of individuals and groups
and as far as the latter is concerned, is commonly linked to organized crime. Such actors
service the demand and often control the child victims. They represent the truly exploitative
nature of the crimes in question since their involvement is motivated by gain.
35.
The most common providers of children for sexual exploitation are facilitators, who
can range from procurers to traffickers and intermediaries, and include financial actors.
Such individuals are not always part of criminal networks. Procurers are generally called by
their vernacular name, such as “pimp” in English. They are the ones who identify the
children and force them into sexual exploitation. Grooming is an essential part of the
process. The aim is to entrap the children into a life of sexual servitude and manipulate
them at will through extreme methods ranging from physical and psychological abuse to the
provision of drugs and alcohol. The demography of procurers is diverse. Though most of
them are men, there is a significant presence of women among procurers. There have also
been cases of peer driven exploitation.26 There is also a substantial number of cases of
parents and/or family members pushing their children into sexual exploitation in order to
provide the family with supplementary income.27
36.
Human traffickers include recruiters, transporters, those who exercise control over
trafficked persons, those who transfer and/or maintain trafficked persons in exploitative
situations and those involved in related crimes, as well as those who profit either directly or
23
24
25
26
27
Information provided by UNODC Regional Office for South-East Asia and the Pacific.
Isabelle Talleyrand, “Military Prostitution: How the Authorities Worldwide Aid and Abet
International Trafficking in Women”, Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce, vol. 27,
No.151 (2000), pp. 151-176. See also A/69/779.
Child Expolitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), “Threat Assessment of Child Sexual
Exploitation and Abuse”, 2013, pp. 18-21.
Information provided by UNODC Regional Office for South-East Asia and the Pacific.
A/HRC/22/54, paras. 30 and 38 and information provided by UNODC Regional Office for South-East
Asia and the Pacific.
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