Strengthen efforts to ensure protection and reparations for sale and sexual exploitation of children: UN expert

GENEVA (8 March 2023) – Fighting impunity and providing reparations must be at the heart of the international response to suffering and harm inflicted on child victims and survivors of sale and sexual exploitation, a UN expert said today.

In a report to the 52nd Session of the Human Rights Council, the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and exploitation of children Mama Fatima Singhateh said that despite progress in providing reparations to child victims and survivors in a handful of States, these efforts need to be universal and strengthened in accordance with international legal standards

"My report is not just a reflection on existing systems of reparations for children around the world,” Singhateh said. “It is intended to signal to the international community at large areas where current provisions in national, regional, and international frameworks can better respond to the needs of child victims and survivors.”

The expert lamented major challenges in effectively combating these abhorrent crimes – all of which urgently need to be addressed through accountability, an aspect she said was often forgotten.

To date, no reparations scheme has provided a complete and comprehensive programme that addresses all categories of child exploitation, violence, and abuse, thereby exposing children to the risk of secondary victimisation.

"Where reparations are attempted, they are rarely effective in reaching the most marginalised groups of children. These children are most often outside or on the margins of the formal State machinery in terms of recognition of their identity and are therefore at risk of being excluded from legal protection," Singhateh said. A crucial first step, the UN expert said, would be for States to introduce and strengthen specific legislation on reparations for child victims and survivors in the national context.

Singhateh’s report analysed the role of non-state actors, including non-state armed groups, corporations, World Bank-funded development projects and multilateral development banks, and found that they have historically fallen short of their responsibilities in addressing and facilitating redress for child victims and survivors of sale and sexual exploitation.

"The reparations process should be empowering, transformative, sustainable, victim-centred and survivor-centred," she said.

"Reparations for child victims and survivors of sale and sexual exploitation require a strong and sustained national, regional and international commitment," Singhateh said.

The Special Rapporteur explained that it should include survivor-centred reparations; a co-design model with meaningful participation of children; development and implementation of transitional measures; strengthening inter-agency cooperation; a child-friendly, multidisciplinary and inter-agency model; age-, gender- and local context-sensitive reparations; immediate delivery of reparations; mobile courts and child-focused mechanisms in vulnerable areas; and the use of information and communication technology to support reparations through targeted detection and mandatory reporting.

The UN expert also presented findings from her 2022 country visit to Mauritius to the Human Rights Council.

ENDS

* Ms. Mama Fatima Singhateh (The Gambia) was appointed as the UN Special Rapporteur on sale and sexual exploitation of children by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2020. She is a trained lawyer with over 20 years of experience. Ms Singhateh has held a number of high-level positions in public service in the Gambia. She holds a master’s degree in International Business Law from the University of Hull and has undergone numerous trainings in child rights programming, arbitration and mediation, and legislative drafting. She has drafted laws, organized and conducted numerous training sessions, delivered presentations at both national and international fora and written articles and reports on issues relating to the promotion and protection of the rights of the child.

The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council's independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organisation and serve in their individual capacity.