Made in Canada solutions to take centre stage at World Congress Against the Sexual Exploitation of Children

It’s estimated millions children are lured into the commercial sex industry worldwide. Canada is no exception. Thousands of children and youth continue to be exploited in the visible street trade, used in escort services, strip clubs, pornography, marketed on the Internet or as is often the case, exchanging sex in order just to survive.

Save the Children Canada and its Alliance partners are committed to working with children and youth, governments, the private sector and other NGO’s to ensure the 2nd World Congress results in a concrete action plan for sexually exploited children. The challenge for the 2nd World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children is to produce a global plan of action with clearly identifiable and measurable goals. The first World Congress was held in Stockholm in 1996.

“The exploitation of children and youth in the sex trade is nothing less than child slavery.” Says Gina Daya Acting Executive Director at Save the Children Canada. “Children are entitled to be protected from sexual abuse and the commercial sex industry. Clearly, this is a fundamental human right.”

Daya continues, “In Canada as in every corner of the globe there are thousands of boys and girls some as young as 9 who are being exploited as sexual commodities. With Exit Routes and Sacred Lives our goal at Save the Children Canada is to help children and youth exit the sex trade and, to prevent others form entering it. We accomplish this by providing positive role models of young people who have successfully exited the sex trade. In turn, they are helping others. The result is a made in Canada program that can work anywhere.”

Save the Children Canada will recommend strategies at the Yokohama conference that will:

• Allow for meaningful participation of young people who have successfully exited the sex trade in the development and implementation of solutions to child sexual exploitation and abuse.
  
• Decriminalize all children engaged in the commercial sex trade. Children have the right to protection and must not be punished as part of any initiative to combat these crimes.
  
• Address the demand for sex with children by focusing on the predators.
  
• Commit services to help commercially sexually exploited young people in and from the sex trade.
  
• Address child sexual exploitation through poverty eradication efforts with national budgets allocated to prevention strategies.

Keynote speaker for the 2nd World Congress is Cherry Kingsley of Save the Children Canada – Ms. Kingsley is former child sex trade worker and now, a leading activist for sexually exploited children The Exit Routes workshop is to be presented by Fadi Barakat Fadel and the Sacred Lives Workshop is to be presented by Melanie Mark of Save the Children Canada’s Vancouver office.

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For further information, please contact:

Taeeba Sadar
Communications Administrator
Save the Children
416.221.5501 x289
tsadar@savethechildren.ca

or

Ian Macaulay
250.744.7931
ian@macaulaygroup.com
or at www.macaulaygroup.com

Notes to Editors

• Given the time differences between Canada and Japan it is preferable to pre-arrange interviews as soon as possible.
  
• More information about the World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Abuse of Children can be found at: http://www.focalpointngo.org/yokohama/
  
• Save the Children Canada is a member of the International Save the Children Alliance. With 32 members and operational programs in over 100 countries, the Alliance is the world’s largest global movement for children. - www.savethechildren.ca