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

Unlike other countries in South Asia, the demand in Sri Lanka is highest for older boys, aged
15 to 17. They make more money and have more bargaining power than younger boys, who
often only receive gifts in exchange for sexual services. While some offenders have provided
extensive support to boys, including boats or houses for their parents, most boys make little
more than pocket money. Research has shown that boys spend little on their own basic needs
and provide little money to their families; nearly two-thirds of their income is spent on drugs,
alcohol, recreation and entertainment.
In terms of preventing sexual exploitation and withdrawing boys from exploitative situations,
perhaps the most challenging features of the Sri Lanka sex industry are boys’ ‘willingness’
and the complicity of families in their exploitation. Interviews with boys in prostitution
showed that 74 per cent were willingly involved, with no force or coercion. 412 Drug abuse is
significant in keeping boys in sexually exploitive situations, and 54 per cent of boys
interviewed said the primary purpose of earning income was to buy drugs.
The situation of boys being sexually exploited in prostitution in Sri Lanka belies the situation
common to much of South Asia, where the causes are poverty, family separation, exploitive
labour and lack of awareness. Some researchers claim that poverty is not a primary cause in
Sri Lanka because there is little extreme poverty in the areas most prone to sexual
exploitation. A 2002 study found that only one-quarter of the boys were from ‘very poor’
families; the majority were from ‘poor’ and ‘not so poor’ families. 413 But there are indications
that families push children into prostitution to supplement insufficient incomes.
Nor does lack of parent or community awareness seem to be a major causal factor. Children
are relatively well educated, media coverage of the issue is adequate and there is a high level
of awareness of sexual abuse and exploitation, including that of boys, compared to other parts
of the region. The 2007 study involving 1,500 parents and guardians found that over 90 per
cent were aware that sexual abuse could be committed by international travelling offenders,
and more than three-quarters were aware that abuse could be committed by local offenders.
Although poverty and lack of awareness certainly contribute to the sexual exploitation of Sri
Lankan children, researchers, NGOs and the government identify the erosion of family
protective systems as a primary cause of children becoming sexually exploited through
prostitution in the country. Sri Lankan researchers have extensively studied the disruption of
family protective environments and its effect on the vulnerability of boys to sexual
exploitation. 414 Strategies and activities to directly address family dysfunction are found in
government policy and programme interventions. In other countries of South Asia, these
linkages have been insufficiently explored by research and insufficiently addressed in policy
and programming.
Family fragmentation, particularly the migration of mothers, is frequently cited by researchers
and policymakers as a cause for the relatively high incidence of domestic sexual abuse. It is
412
International Labour Organization (S. Amarasinghe), 2002, op. cit.
413
Ibid.
414
For example, Weeramunda, A.J., 1994, ‘Child prostitution or poverty’ in Economic Review, May-June 1994;
and de Silva, H., 2000, ‘Child abuse in Sri Lanka’, in Partners in the Judicial Process on Child Labour.
131