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

and school with vulnerability to sexual exploitation. Although the document generally
referred to ‘children’, in many sections girls and not boys were specifically noted for
intervention.
Subsequently in 2006, the Central Advisory Committee drafted the Integrated Plan of Action
to Prevent and Combat Human Trafficking, with Special Focus on Children and Women
(IPOA) 244 .. The IPOA is more a set of guidelines than a plan of action, providing general
recommendations for action as well as delineating the roles of government and private sector
stakeholders. As with the RPOA, the document conflates ‘trafficking for sexual exploitation’
with ‘sexual exploitation’ as such. Thus it does not address key issues relevant to the sexual
exploitation of boys, including separation from family, and the linkages between sexual
exploitation and abuse in the family, community and workplace.
The IPOA, like the RPOA, is focused on female prostitution, and while including ‘streetbased’
along with ‘brothel-based’ prostitution, it identifies female arenas of non-brothelbased
prostitution, such as “massage parlours, escort services, party hostesses, attendants,
companions, etc.” 245 Prevention, protection, rescue and rehabilitation activities do not address
the more informal activities of prostitution by boys, including the linkages with street living
and labour in the hotel and tourism sector. Welfare schemes, education and vocational
training, awareness activities and other initiatives to create protective environments are
primarily focused on women and girls.
The National Plan of Action for Children 2005 (NPAC), despite its brevity, is more
comprehensive than the RPOA or IPOA in addressing the scope of child sexual abuse and
exploitation, and it is less discriminatory against boys. The NPAC covers a wide range of
protection concerns through its objective (in section 11, ‘Children in Difficult
Circumstances’) to protect “all children against neglect, maltreatment, injury, trafficking,
sexual and physical abuse of all kinds, pornography, corporal punishment, torture,
exploitation, violence, and degrading treatment”. 246 This section comprehensively notes the
range of children vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation, including children living on the
street, migrant children, children affected by disasters, children of commercial sex workers
and children born as eunuchs 247 or brought up by eunuchs, among many others. Among the
strategies are developing a system of reporting abuse, developing community-based
protection systems and arranging night shelters for children at risk.
The NPAC places specific focus on child sexual abuse, separating it from child trafficking, in
section 13, ‘Sexual Exploitation and Child Pornography’. 248 Among the objectives in this
section are identifying root causes of sexual abuse and exploitation, recognizing and
addressing sexual abuse in the home by family members and the sexual abuse of children in
244
National Human Rights Commission, New Delhi, India, http://nhrc.nic.in/disparchive.asp?fno=1543,
accessed on 16 March 2010.
245
Ministry of Women and Child Development, Republic of India, 2006, ‘Integrated plan of action to prevent
and combat human trafficking, with special focus on children and women 2006’.
246
National Plan of Action for Children 2005.
247
In India the term ‘eunuch’ refers both to males who have been castrated and to those born with indeterminate
genitalia.
248 National Plan of Action for Children 2005, Section 13.
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