Philippine E-Journals

Vulnerable Runaway Children to Trafficking in Makassar, Indonesia

Ma Syamsuddin | Azlinda Azman

Discipline: Social Science, Humanities

 

Abstract:

Children are the most vulnerable age group to be the victim of human trafficking (Asis, 2008; Meadows, 2010; Reid & Jones, 2011). The World Human Rights Organization and UNICEF estimated that there were about 50,000 girls being trafficked for prostitution to Cambodia in 2003 (Shelley, 2010). About 40,000 to 70,000 Indonesian children are also the victims of sexual exploitation and at least 100,000 women and children were trafficked annually from, through, and to the territory of Indonesia itself (http://www. humantrafficking.org/countries/indonesia, 2012).

 

The United States Department of State (2011) clearly distinguished three forms of child trafficking, namely child labor, child soldiers, and child prostitution. Trade of sex or child prostitution has destroyed the lives of many children, leaving the children to experience long term physical and psychological trauma, contracting sexually transmitted disease, including HIV/AIDS, involved in drug addiction, exposed to unwanted pregnancy, malnutrition, social isolation, and death.