Literacy and education levels are no guarantee for curbing sexual abuse and exploitation, even when it comes to children. That has been proved by a state government-sponsored study which reveals that a flourishing flesh trade involving boys and girls between ages eight and 18 operates in the cities of Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode.
The research project identified 825 child prostitutes in the three cities, of which 355 were males and 470 females. Child prostitutes below the age of 14 constituted 6.67 per cent and were mostly girls. The identified cases are by no means the final tally of children in the flesh trade across the state.
A sizeable number of children interviewed had finished school and were in great demand among clients fearful of contracting hiv and sexually transmitted diseases and believed child sex to be a safer option.
Researchers of the the Womens Empowerment and Human Resource Development Centre of India (whi), a Thiruvananthapuram -based voluntary organisation entrusted by the government to conduct the study, interviewed 300 children in the three cities. The results were startling.
Poverty, broken families or sexually abusive relatives, co-workers or bosses were found to be the chief factors driving these children into the sex trade. Like 14-year-old Mohini, whose father is an employee of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, and her mother a housemaid. With her father preferring to spend time away from home and in the company of other women, Mohini took to hawking her body to tourists on Kovalam beach to bring in the extra cash. Regrets she may have, but shes never looked back since.
Mohini belongs to the ranks of street children who ply their trade openly. They are but a small section on the lower end of the sex trade. More clandestine are the girls who meet clients in their homes or in pre-arranged safe houses, away from the sight of the authorities. Child prostitutes making house calls are less prone to fall victim to violence from clients wary of drawing the attention of neighbours. These girls are not driven by poverty but by the lust for glitter. Most of their money is spent on cosmetics, clothes and exotic food. Often, they do it just to get even with overstrict parents.
The situation is worse in Kozhikode, where children accompany clients on extended journeys. Pleasant and unpleasant experiences await them on these trips. The kids are usually swamped with gifts and cash. But sometimes the ride gets rough and they end up gangraped as well as short-changed. Boys, though, are less vulnerable to client abuse. In Kochi and Kozhikode, young boys are in demand from the homosexual community as well as lonely nri wives.
This is a closed trade, yet anybody you meet on the street could prove to be a link: autorickshaw drivers, lottery ticket-sellers, std booth operators, stationery shop employees, fruit vendors or bus conductors. The client profile covers the broad social spectrum: businessmen, government officials, bank employees, politicians, policemen, college students, even pensioners. Predictably, the study stays clear of elaborating on the social profile of the clients.
"This exploitation of children is shameful in a state such as Kerala which boasts 100 per cent literacy, political awareness and steps taken to empower women," fumes Sugathakumari, chairperson of the State Womens Commission. "What are the police doing about it?"
Precisely nothing. For them, the problem does not exist. Observes Arun Kumar Sinha, Commissioner of Police, Thiruvananthapuram: "It is only a rumour. We have not received any petition regarding child prostitution." Sinha admits that 17 children from Karnataka were used for prostitution in the Kovalam beach resort, but they were rounded up and sent back. There have been no cases since, he contends.
But dig Jacob Thomas, former director of the Womens Commission and chief consultant to the project, recognises that the police have a habit of not acknowledging a social evil. "Its not a priority," he says. "vip security is their priority." As police commissioner in Kochi, Thomas had in fact issued identity cards to social workers involved in rehabilitating child prostitutes. The ID cards were meant to save them from police harassment.
Dr K.G. Vijayalekshmi, project director, plans to extend the study to the rural areas where the girl children mostly come from. She thinks the problem cannot be tackled by directly hitting the powerful commercial interests and the gangs that protect the trade. She advocates awareness-building and gradual exposure as a means of exerting pressure on the clandestine racket.
In the vicious cycle of demand and supply, the child prostitute must surely be the most debased product since the invention of commerce.
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