SEXUAL ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION OF BOYS IN SOUTH ASIA A ...

prostitution is less likely to be long-distance trafficking/transportation and more likely to be
personal influence and coercion in a local setting, as is common throughout South Asia.
However, while the HTTA does not provide the needed comprehensive definition of child
trafficking as in the Palermo Protocol, it is a significant improvement over previous
legislation in better describing the modus operandi of causing a child to be engaged in
prostitution. The methods according to Part 4(2) (b) of the HTTA include: “… enticement,
allurement, misrepresentation, fraud, deception, force, coercion, abduction, taking hostage,
taking benefit of vulnerability, making unconscious, abusing post or power or alluring,
causing fear, giving threat or coercing the parent or guardian, with the purpose of causing to
be engaged in prostitution or exploitation.” 296 Although constraints to prosecution remain,
this passage could potentially provide better means to address the activities of sex abusers as
well as the forced sexual exploitation of boys in the workplace.
The Interim Constitution 2063 (2007) also addresses “trafficking in human beings, slavery or
serfdom” in its article 29. Moreover, it is stated in article 22(3) that children shall “have the
right against physical, mental or any other form of exploitation”.
6.3 Policy
The National Plan of Action against Trafficking of Women and Children for Commercial
Sexual Exploitation was developed by the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare
in 1998 and revised in 2003 with a view towards improving its implementation.
The mechanisms to implement the NPA include the Central Child Welfare Board, District
Child Welfare Boards, a National Human Rights Commission and a National Task Force on
Trafficking in Children and Women. Juvenile benches in district courts have been established
under law but have yet to come into being.
The NPA includes sections on policy, research and institutional development; legislation and
enforcement; awareness creation, advocacy, networking and social mobilization; health and
education; income and employment generation; rescue and reintegration; cross-border,
regional and international issues; and monitoring and evaluation. The NPA contains most of
the basic mechanisms to address trafficking, takes a rights-based approach and seeks to
include the participation of children in reviewing the plan and developing programmes.
The primary weaknesses of the plan are its vague strategy, lack of clear mechanisms for
implementation and reliance for implementation on district and local task forces that lack the
resources, will and mandate to carry out anti-trafficking programmes. In consequence,
implementation of the NPA has been ineffective at the district and local levels, and NGOs
and bilateral donors have continued to conduct the majority of anti-trafficking
interventions. 297 Gaps in legislation are summarized in general terms in the NPA. These are
not sufficient to address areas in which children, particularly boys, are not protected by law.
296 Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act 2007.
297 UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2009 ‘South Asia in action: Preventing and responding to child
trafficking: Analyses of anti-trafficking initiatives in the region’.
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