Credit: UNICEF/Noorani

UN human rights experts are warning of a direct link between the pandemic, socio-economic vulnerability and the risk of exploitation, including forced labour or being sold, trafficked and sexually exploited.

The UN commemorated the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons on July 30.

By Tsitsi Matekaire and Tara Carey
LONDON, Aug 1 2022 (IPS)

It is often those least responsible for causing climate change that suffer the most from the impacts. And such is the case with women and girls in Malawi – one of the world’s poorest and lowest carbon-emitting countries but ranked fifth in the Global Climate Index 2021 list of nations worst affected by climate-related extreme weather.

Climate change exacerbates sexual and gender-based violence in numerous ways, pushing people further into poverty, enflaming conflict over depleting natural resources, forcing migration, and compounding pre-existing gender discrimination. All these and many other forces conspire to put vulnerable women and girls in greater danger of sexual abuse and exploitation.

A recent study by Cambridge University analyzing scientific literature on extreme weather events found that gender-based violence — such as sexual assault, intimate partner violence, or trafficking, both during and after disasters — are recurring issues in studies worldwide.

In Malawi, the climate crisis is already triggering more erratic and extreme weather, resulting in chronic water, food, and financial insecurity for millions. Over the past twenty years, droughts and floods have increased in intensity, frequency, and scale, causing devasting environmental, social, and economic damage.

Around 9 out of 10 people in Malawi depend on rain-fed agriculture, and over half the population is food insecure. Rising temperatures, unreliable rains, and extreme weather events like cyclones influence food production and costs.

The economic downturn triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has disrupted global supplies of cereals and fertilizers, have pushed prices up further.

According to World Bank data, 82% of Malawi’s population live in rural areas, and women account for 65% of smallholder farmers, making them particularly exposed to food insecurity. Women are often dependent on natural resources, and many earn a living in the informal sector, leaving them less able to withstand economic and environmental shocks.

Climate change is a threat multiplier

Climate change is not just an environmental problem – it acts as a “threat multiplier” interacting with social systems to exacerbate systemic inequalities. So, although everyone is affected by the ravages of the climate crisis, the vulnerability of individuals varies depending on their gender, geography, class, ethnicity, and age.

Global warming and environmental damage are gendered because the ability of women to adapt is hampered by their social status and limited income, education, and resources. Women are more likely to live in poverty than men and commonly have less schooling, decision-making power, and access to finance.

When yields from harvests are reduced, this leaves subsistence farmers with little or no surplus produce to sell to earn money for purchasing basics like medicine, clothes, sanitary products, schooling, and agricultural inputs for bolstering farming production.

Being unable to produce enough food to feed their families or pay for other essentials puts women under intense pressure to find alternative sources of income. This renders them more susceptible to sexual exploitation, which can take various forms such as transactional sex in exchange for goods, and being trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation.

Family financial hardship also disproportionately affects girls, who are frequently pressured to drop out of school to do domestic work and find paid employment. This, in turn, increases their susceptibility to exploitation, including false promises made by traffickers about jobs and education further afield.

In addition, girls experience higher rates of child and forced marriage, as parents may view marriage as a coping strategy to elevate monetary difficulties and shield daughters from sexual violence. It is estimated that around 1.5 million girls in Malawi are at risk of becoming child brides as a direct result of climate change.

There are other ways that existing gender roles interplay with climate change and sexual violence. In Malawi and across sub-Saharan Africa, gathering water and firewood is widely deemed the responsibility of women and girls. A lack of clean water and depletion of natural resources caused by environmental degradation means they often have to travel further to acquire scarce resources.

Not only does this use up precious unpaid time that could be spent on beneficial activities such as income generation or schooling, but it also heightens their exposure to rape and sexual assault. And in some instances, women and girls must contend with sexual exploitation and abuse by those who control access to limited natural resources, such as at water collection points.

The system is failing victims of sexual and gender-based violence

For the vast majority of victims of trafficking, sexual violence, and exploitation, justice goes unserved. Caleb Ng’ombo runs People Serving Girls at Risk (PSGR), a frontline organization in Malawi that works to end human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, prostitution, and child marriages.

Caleb explains, “Victims are being failed by Malawi’s criminal justice system. Few cases make it to court. Those that do are plagued by multiple delays, and perpetrators are rarely punished.”

“Child marriage, sexual exploitation, and trafficking have blighted the lives of thousands of women and girls across Malawi, and the worsening climate crisis is putting more at greater risk. The government should not turn a blind eye to gender-based human rights violations. Addressing these problems must be central to climate response, including disaster and adaption planning.”

Malawi is a source, transit, and destination country for sex trafficking, and climate crisis is fueling it. PSGR and international women’s rights organization Equality Now have submitted a joint complaint to the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) highlighting the poor implementation of anti-trafficking legislation by the Government of Malawi is leaving girls unprotected against sex trafficking.

Malawi’s criminal justice system needs to respond better to the realities and needs of survivors, including safeguarding them against further exploitation and ensuring support services are readily available.

Effectively addressing this crisis requires a gender-responsive, human rights-based approach from the state, one that targets the root causes of gender discrimination.

Climate change also demands action from wealthy industrialized nations that bare the largest responsible for global warming due to their high emissions, both historical and current.

Around the world, a growing climate justice movement is calling for Global North governments to provide countries like Malawi with international finance for climate adaption, restitution for damages already caused, and national debt cancellation so money can be redirected towards supporting those in need, in particular women and girls and other marginalized groups.

With global temperatures continuing to rise, it is vital that laws, policies, and funding deliver on the distinct vulnerabilities and requirements of women and girls so they are protected against gender-based violence and better able to cope with future climate shocks.

Tsitsi Matekaire is the Global Lead on End Sexual Exploitation at Equality Now and Tara Carey Head of Media.

IPS UN Bureau

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A mother and daughter in Kenya. The daughter was a victim of sexual violence. Credit: Tara Carey, Equality Now

By Tsitsi Matekaire
LONDON, Jun 26 2020 (IPS)

In Malawi, Mary* was only 14 years old when she was recruited and trafficked to the city of Blantyre and sold for sex in a bar. A man had arrived in her village looking for girls to work as domestic helpers for families.

He appeared genuine and for Mary – and many girls who are out of school and living in poverty – this seemed a way out and a chance to earn money to support her family. She was living with her grandmother, who had hardly enough to buy food.

When Mary arrived in Blantyre, the promised work never materialized. Instead, the man sold her to a bar owner who in turn sold her for sex to his customers. Isolated and traumatized, Mary was trapped for over three months, and only escaped when the bar owner went away one night.

Although it has now been over two years since his arrest, the case is still pending in court. With no fixed time limit, the legal process has dragged on, leaving Mary waiting indefinitely and stuck in limbo. Meanwhile, the man who recruited her from the village has never been arrested.

Mary would have abandoned her fight for justice long ago had it not been for the support of Equality Now and our partner People Serving Girls at Risk, who have been providing psycho-social assistance to help Mary rebuild her life and navigate the difficult legal process.

This includes covering her transport costs and accompanying her to numerous court hearings that to date have resulted in only postponements, disappointment, and upset.

Worryingly, the many legal obstacles faced by Mary are neither uncommon in sex trafficking cases, nor are they unique to Malawi. Across Africa, traffickers who recruit, abuse, and sexually exploit vulnerable and impoverished women and children are going unpunished because governments and criminal justice systems are failing in their duty to hold perpetrators to account.

Take for instance, the horrific case of German national Bernhard Glaser, who was arrested in Ugandan in February 2019 and charged with multiple counts of sex trafficking and abusing girls aged 10 to 16 who were living at an unlicensed shelter Glaser had established ostensibly to “help” vulnerable children.

The story made international headlines and caused huge public uproar amongst Ugandans who were appalled at how this predator had betrayed the community’s trust and abused his position of power to sexually exploit many girls over a long period of time.

Despite widespread public outrage, more than a year after Glaser’s arrest, the case was still pending, delayed by multiple adjournments, with Glaser yet to even enter his plea. He died from cancer in April 2020, a day after being granted bail.

The girls never got their day in court. Nor has the Ugandan state addressed the issues making them vulnerable to exploitation or provided assistance to help them overcome their ordeal, instead leaving them at risk of further abuse.

Meanwhile, 61-year-old American Christian missionary Gregory Dow has pleaded guilty in a US court to sexually abusing girls in Kenya. Back in 1996, he was convicted in America for assault with intent to commit sexual abuse against a teenager and was sentenced to two years’ probation and ordered to register as a sex offender.

He later travelled to Kenya and in 2008 established a home for orphaned children where he violated girls in his care.

In 2017, Dow fled back to the United States after Kenyan authorities attempted to arrest him. He was eventually taken into custody after being located by FBI agents and US police.

A statement by the US Department of Justice said: “The defendant purported to be a Christian missionary who cared for these children and asked them to call him “Dad.” But instead of being a father figure, he preyed on their youth and vulnerability.”

Sexual exploitation is both a cause and a consequence of discrimination and the unequal status of women and girls. Adolescent girls are in an especially disadvantaged position, which is underpinned by multiple layers of discrimination directed at them for being young, female, and sexualized by society.

These structural inequalities exist across Africa, as they do in all the regions of the world. High levels of poverty alongside harmful cultural practices make girls particularly susceptible to sexual predators and traffickers, who take advantage of shortcomings in social safety nets, local child protection systems, law enforcement, and judicial processes.

The current pandemic exposes and exacerbates deep-rooted structural inequalities that run along the cultural fault lines of gender, sexuality, race, disability, and class. In the wake of COVID-19, an economic crisis is placing further burdens on underprivileged communities, with many suffering severe financial hardship.

The United Nations has warned human traffickers are becoming increasingly active, targeting impoverished women and children who have lost their income as a consequence of lockdown and social distancing measures introduced to limit the spread of coronavirus.

Meanwhile, school closures have interrupted the education of over 1.5 billion students worldwide, and protection systems have been severely disrupted. Predators are seeking to take advantage of youngsters spending more time unsupervised on the internet.

Across Africa, the expansion of inexpensive, high-speed internet and the growth in smartphone, tablet, and laptop ownership is swelling the number of children who can be targeted in the digital realm. Girls are particularly vulnerable to online grooming, sexual coercion, and sextortion, accounting for 90% of those featured in online child abuse materials.

Coupled with this is a disturbing global surge in demand for child abuse content. The worldwide impact of COVID-19 means people have been spending more time online, fuelling what was already a vast and rapidly expanding form of cybercrime intersecting national boundaries.

Exponential growth in the volume of digital content is making the cybersphere harder to police, and emboldened distributors of child sexual exploitation material are targeting mainstream platforms to reach wider audiences.

It is commendable that numerous African governments, including those in Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda, have enacted anti-trafficking and child protection laws that can be used to safeguard children and punish offenders. It is an important step. However, implementation is often very weak. Sex trafficking and sexual exploitation cases are not prioritized.

In many African countries, courts have closed, reduced, or adjusted their operations, making the situation even worse for girls seeking justice. Mounting backlogs of legal cases will further prolong judicial and administrative proceedings.

Without functioning judicial oversight, girls’ access to justice and protection from sexual exploitation will be undermined to an even greater extent.

It is more urgent than ever that the justice system responds to the realities of children whose rights have been violated. States must put in place measures to ensure that girls have access to protection and justice in meaningful ways during and after the pandemic.

Governments need to do more to ensure survivors of sexual exploitation are protected and supported in their recovery. When victims and their families cannot trust the courts to deliver justice, it undermines the power of the law and emboldens offenders to continue exploiting and abusing with impunity.

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By Tsitsi Matekaire
LONDON, Feb 13 2020 (IPS)

Online sexual exploitation is a global epidemic that is increasing at an alarming rate.

At any one time, 750,000 individuals across the world are looking to connect with children and young people online for sexual exploitation. The expansion of the Internet, advances in information and communications technologies (ICTs), and the development of increasingly sophisticated digital tools that provide anonymity, mean that the number of potential victims is growing exponentially, and so too is the pool of those seeking to abuse them.

An investigation by The New York Times on how technology companies and the US government are being overwhelmed by this epidemic found that a record 45 million online photos and videos of child sexual exploitation were reported by US-based technology companies to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in 2018.

And the problem is getting worse. In 2019, record-breaking 70 million total images and videos were reported to NICMEC, an enormous increase on the 1.1 million it received in 2014.

Children and young people are especially connected online. One in three Internet users worldwide are under the age of 18 years, and with availability and accessibility continuing to improve, more and more children own or have access to Internet-enabled smart devices.

Technology is also making children contactable around the clock. Young people across the world are spending an increasing amount of time online, and in the US, teenagers are now engaging with screen media seven hours per day on average.

Accompanying this is the expansion of social media, which has created a plethora of new opportunities for would-be offenders to connect and interact with children anonymously and unsupervised.

Adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation. They are subjected to a double layer of discrimination because they are young and female, and are sexualized from a young age, both in the way society treats them and in how the media portrays them.

Sexualized images of girls and young women are ubiquitous in advertising, merchandising, and the entertainment industry. All this perpetuates gender stereotypes that can negatively impact the developing body image and self-esteem of girls.

Social media has amplified these long-standing pressures, pushing girls to conform to particular sexualized narratives, and leaving them especially vulnerable to sexual exploitation both off and online.

New data gathered by UK based internet watchdog the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) revealed that 30 percent of sexually explicit images of children found online are self-generated.

IWF took action over 124,605 images found online between January and November 2019. Over three-quarters of these images (78 per cent) featured children aged 11 to 13, most of whom were girls.

Adolescent girls are particularly at risk of being groomed, coerced, or blackmailed into providing explicit images and videos, often via webcams, which can then be posted online and shared via networks operating across the world.

In some instances, children are sending videos and images to their peers on smartphones and via social media platforms. For the most part, this content will remain with the person it was intended for, but sometimes material is passed onto others. Once online, it is almost impossible to control where it ends up or stop its spread.

Victims can be left feeling sexually violated, powerless, socially isolated, and stigmatized. A range of mental health problems are associated with this, including PTSD, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.

Exploited children are at a heightened risk of becoming exploited and vulnerable adults, and as victims reach the age of majority, they no longer have the legal protections afforded to minors in different legal and policy contexts.

Particularly disturbing can be the ongoing sense of re-victimization arising from images of abuse being shared repeatedly across the digital landscape and viewed multiple times by countless people.

Frequently, requests asking for content to be removed are ignored, or image taken off one online platform, soon reappear elsewhere. This can feel like ongoing sexual assault, casting a long shadow that can have a profoundly damaging impact continuing into adulthood.

Commendable efforts in progress, but more challenges to overcome

Governments, technology companies, research institutions, civil society organizations, donors, and many others are rising to the challenge and are providing various examples of successful interventions and innovations.

In 2009, Microsoft partnered with Dartmouth College to develop PhotoDNA, a technology that aids in locating and removing online child abuse content. Today, PhotoDNA is used around the world to detect and report millions of illegal images. It works by creating a unique digital signature of an image called a “hash”, which is similar to a fingerprint.

The hash can then be matched to copies of the same image so they can be located and removed by governments and tech companies.

Organizations such as NetClean and Thorn are harnessing the power of technology to create tools to assist law enforcement, tech platforms, and civil society organizations in identifying illegal material online, track exploiters, and bring them to justice.

The Global Threat Assessment by WePROTECT Global Alliance to End Child Sexual Exploitation Online has brought together governments, the tech industry, and NGOs to galvanize global action, increase understanding about the nature and scale of the problem, and develop and implement strategies.

These efforts are commendable and have begun to make inroads. However, the globalized nature of online sexual exploitation, combined with it continuously expanding and evolving landscape, means we still face enormous challenges and new obstacles.

Not everyone around the world is being afforded the same protections. International women’s rights organization Equality Now is undertaking a review of existing international and regional legal frameworks relevant to online sexual exploitation to understand in greater detail the practices, gaps, and opportunities.

Technological solutions need to work alongside legal and policy solutions, but existing legal frameworks are diverse and inadequate. In many countries, legislation and law enforcement have failed to keep up with cybercrime, and some governments have not yet prioritized the threat or have limited resources to invest in infrastructure and safeguards to protect vulnerable people.

Exploiters and the online platforms they use operate across national borders, and legislation has not been updated to adequately address issues regarding legal jurisdictions. For instance, any website – whether a large multinational company, one set up specifically to facilitate exploitation, or any other platform – may use servers located in various locations overseen by different legal authorities.

Other difficulties arise from balancing the rights to privacy and freedom of expression with the need for regulation that protects vulnerable people from exploitation.

Analysis of the problem, and identification and development of solutions, needs to include a gendered lens so that the specific vulnerabilities and needs of adolescent girls are considered and addressed.

Teenage girls often fall through gaps in the law, leaving them without the same basic protections that are in place for younger children, meaning they are less safe, less likely to be given support, and less likely to receive justice if their rights have been violated. They are also commonly blamed or even criminalized instead of being treated as victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation.

The global and complex nature of online sexual exploitation requires that all of us come together to find solutions. This involves applying a gendered lens to research and understanding how the Internet and technology are being misused to facilitate sexual exploitation.

We need to formulate and adopt common international regulations or a global convention the layout the responsibility and accountability of all actors involved in the online sexual exploitation of vulnerable people. This involves having mechanisms in place to address new legal challenges as they emerge.

Crucial to success is having survivors at the center of discussions so their voices are heard and their perspectives inform and strengthen solutions. Listening to those with first-hand experience and documenting systematically what they have been through can help us identify what needs to change and put better protections in place so the world can benefit from an Internet that is safer for all. For media enquiries and interview requests please contact Sr.

*Equality Now is an international human rights organization that works to protect and promote the rights of women and girls around the world by combining grassroots activism with international, regional and national legal advocacy. Equality Now’s international network of lawyers, activists, and supporters achieve legal and systemic change by holding governments responsible for enacting and enforcing laws and policies that end legal inequality, sex trafficking, sexual violence, and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage.

For details of our current campaigns, please visit www.equalitynow.org and find us on Facebook @equalitynoworg and Twitter @equalitynow.

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