A personal account of a child soldier...

A Sri Lankan boy tells his story of being taken by the LTTE.

This nine year old Indian girl was trafficked with her whole family and sold to an owner of a brick factory. She works seven days a week from dawn until well in the night.

source: http://www.gtipphotos.state.gov/gtip.cfm?galleryID=562&id=4

Outside a Hong Kong club, this sign translates to: "Young, fresh Hong Kong girls; White, clean Malaysian girls; Beijing women; Luxurious ghost girls from Russia."

Statistics show that 65% of persons are trafficked for sexual exploitation.

source: http://www.gtipphotos.state.gov/gtip.cfm?galleryID=542&id=2

A Nepalese mother searches for her daughter who was abducted and trafficked into a sex brothel. She said will never give up searching for her daughter.

Joseph...

An image of Joseph, a Sudanese child who was sold to slavery when he was 7 years old. He was beaten repeatedly before being nailed to a board by his master and burned, leaving scars.

Credited to: Persecution Project Foundation

300, 000 child soldiers

This is a picture of child soldiers marching in Angola, a country that was torn apart by a civil war and continues to struggle. It is one of over 30 countries that has either once or continues to recruit child soldiers, some as young as 7 years old. It is considered one of the worst forms of child labour.

Girls have also been increasingly recruited into armies. Some become sex slaves in addition to combat, however, boys are also exploited sexually. Children are sometimes dulled into submission by the use of narcotics and mental intimidation such as a fear of revenge and isolation. They often stay in the army because they have nowhere else to go and so become both victims and participants in war.

Africa has close to 200, 000 child soldiers in Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Chad, and Uganda. The Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army is estimated to have kidnapped over 25, 000 children for their army. Asian countries, Laos and Myanmar, openly recruit children into their armies. Sri Lankan rebel ground, the Liberation of Tigers of Tamil Eelam over 6, 000 children. Facing international pressure, LTTE has banned the recruitment of children.

Asia and African are not the only continents with this problem. The Middle East and Latin America (40% of the Bolivian army is under 18) have thousands of child soldiers being exploited.


There are organisations which exist to find and help these children, but the magnitude is simply too grand to imagine. Often times the children face huge difficulties in adapting to life without war as many were so young when they were taken, they received very little education, and no longer have contact with their families.

Red Hand Day on February 12th is an international day of recognition of the practice of children in conflict.

From the United Nations, since 1996:

• 2 million children have been killed in armed conflict
• 6 million children have been left behind physically challenged by war
• 12 million children are without any shelter

Slavery in our modern times...

The transatlantic trade of slaves was abolished 200 years ago, but slavery still exists in a manner that is both frightening and appalling. UNESCO estimates that globally, there are between 200 – 300 million slaves. Their names, their faces, their races, and the methods of procuring them may have changed, but one fact remains the same as 200 years ago: It is a human tragedy which destroys, exploits, and dehumanizes the lives of men, women and children for purely economic reasons.

The traffic of human beings is defined as the "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of person, by threats, physical force or in other forms of pressure, by abduction, fraud, deceit, abuse of authority or a situation of vulnerability." (UNESCO) These include forced prostitutiion or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour, debt servitude, forced organ removal, child soldiers, and begging.

There are no more boats, nor chains, nor whips, but it is still slavery. The victims are often deceived and attracted by false promises or forced physically. Certain traffickers use coercive and manipulative tactics which include deception, threats, feigned love, isolation, debt bondage, drugs, and other forms of abuse to control their victims.

How big of a problem is slavery? The United Nations and other experts say that there are persons from 127 countries being exploited in 137. The international human trafficking ring is second to only the drugs and arms trades, totalling in a profit of 32 BILLION dollars each year, 10 billion from the sale of human beings alone. It is a tragedy that spans the globe and knows no borders.

To say that slavery ended 200 years ago is a discredit to the millions who suffer daily. For a world that is supposedly becoming more modern, we are much closer to our past than anyone realizes.