OWN CORRESPONDENT, Bloemfontein | Thursday
CAPE Town is fast becoming the leading child sex tourism destination of the world, where regular sex tours are organised in much the same fashion as wine route tours, according to one of South Africa’s top welfare officials.
Law enforcement officials are fully aware of the trend, but are either turning a blind eye to the problem for fear of hurting the country’s tourism industry, or simply accepting bribes to keep quiet, says Andre Viviers, assistant director in the Department of Welfare.
Viviers told a children’s rights conference in Bloemfontein that although statistics on child prostitution are “very unreliable”, it is believed that hundreds of thousands of South African children are involved in the trade, in ways ranging from pornographic websites, videos and magazines to child sex tourism.
The fear of HIV/Aids was a major contributing factor to the child sex industry, as some “customers” preferred having sex with children and virgins, believing it was safer than making use of the services of older sex workers.
Other reasons for children becoming involved in the sex industry include poverty, domestic violence, dysfunctional families and cultural beliefs.
Viviers says legislation should be amended to ensure that child prostitutes are treated as victims and not criminals. Children caught selling their bodies were still subject to prosecution, while some pieces of legislation do not even mention the culpability of their customers.
“The majority of legislation in South Africa was designed by people who have no understanding of the dynamics of the child sex industry – and with little regard for children’s rights,” he said.
The conference also heard that child labour was prevalent in South Africa.
According to Mandisa Pamla, a senior administration officer in the Department of Labour, 1996 statistics put the figure at about 400000 children between the ages of 10 and 16.
However, research conducted last year has revealed alarming statistics, she said. A number of government departments have been implicated in inactivity in this regard.
One of the department’s biggest concerns was replacing the income of children being removed from the employment sector, many of whom were supporting entire families.