The trafficking of children for purposes of sexual exploitation

2. Ensure a reduction in the incidence of commercial sexual exploitation through the following
preventative measures
• access to free and compulsory primary education
• improve access and provide appropriate health services, education and training, recreation and a
supportive environment to families and children vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation
• maximise education on child rights
• initiate gender-sensitive education
• the promotion of child rights in families
• the identification and establishment of peer education programmes to combat the commercial
sexual exploitation of children
• the formulation and implementation of gender-sensitive national social and economic policies to
assist children vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation, families and communities in
resisting acts that lead to commercial sexual exploitation
• the enactment and implementation of laws, policies and programmes, to prevent the commercial
sexual exploitation of children, bearing in mind the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
3. The protection of children through
• the implementation of laws and policies and programmes designed to protect children at risk
and to prohibit the sexual exploitation of children
• the implementation of national laws to establish the criminal responsibility of service providers,
customers and intermediaries in child prostitution, child trafficking and child pornography,
including possession of child pornography, and other unlawful sexual activity.
4. Facilitating the recovery and integration of child survivors of commercial sexual
exploitation by, inter alia
• adopting a non-punitive approach to child victims
• providing social, medical, psychological and other support to victims of commercial sexual
exploitation
• adopting not only legal sanctions against the perpetrators of sexual crimes against children and
their families, but also sociomedical and psychological measures to create behavioural changes
on the part of the perpetrators.
5. Ensure the participation of children in actions aimed at the prevention of the commercial
sexual exploitation of children by
• promoting the participation of children and others so that they are able to express their views
and to take action to prevent and protect children from commercial sexual exploitation
• identifying or establishing support networks of children and young people as advocates of child
rights.
1.5. National Programme of Action
The National Programme of Action (NPA) is a national process that grew out of recommendations
made at the Conference on the State of the African Child and the Thembisa Declaration, devised in
1993. Out of these initiatives and in collaboration with UNICEF the NPA process began. The
primary aim of the NPA is to improve the well being of families and children. Its work is based on a
programmatic response through national and provincial processes and structures, underpinned by a
partnership between government, civil society and UNICEF - to the idealistic vision of the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child and Section 28 of the South African Constitution. 12 In 1997
the NPA devised a programme with achievable outcomes towards the eradication of the sexual
exploitation of children. Molo Songololo as partner in the processes of the NPA sees itself as giving
12 National Programme of Action: 2000 & Beyond, An Assessment of the NPA and the Way Forward p.4
9