Edited by Jérôme Ballet , Augendra Bhukuth

This edited volume examines child exploitation in the Global South. It introduces several case studies and interviews articulated around two features: exploitation within the family and exploitation in relation to social contexts. The research shows that both of the features are linked and, generally, they are not separate. It makes several important arguments which challenge the most common view on how children are perceived and exploited in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Additionally, it explores the social representation of exploited children as well as their general well-being.

Cham, SWIT: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 221p.

By William Adams, Colleen Owens, and Kevonne Small

Each year, as many as 300,000 children become victims of commercial sexual exploitation in the United States. Such victimization can have devastating effects on a child’s physical and mental health and well-being. In an effort to stop the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), Congress enacted the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act (TVPA) in 2000. As the seminal legislation in America’s efforts to end CSEC, the Act criminalizes human trafficking on a federal level. This bulletin describes the results of a study funded by OJJDP to examine TVPA’s impact on the prosecution of CSEC cases. The authors draw on CSEC cases processed in federal courts between 1998 and 2005 to take a look at how current laws addressing CSEC are enforced, indicate key features of successful CSEC prosecutions, and describe how legislation has affected sentences imposed on CSEC perpetrators, as well as legislation’s effects on the provision of services to victims. The bulletin concludes with a discussion of how the juvenile justice community and policymakers could improve the prosecution of CSEC crimes.

Washington, DC: Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2010. 12p.

By Brandy Bang, Paige L. Baker, Alexis Carpinteri, and Vincent B. Van Hasselt

"Biological, psychological, and environmental risk factors leave children and adolescents vulnerable to corruption, coercion, and violence, as in cases of young people being trafficked and sexually exploited. While the public tends to associate such abuses with far-off locales, the numbers of American-born children targeted by sex traffickers, and of international youth brought to the U.S. by these exploiters, are growing and disturbing. Concise and well-detailed, Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children examines the severity and complexity of this form of crime, and how it is being addressed through law enforcement and legal channels. The book examines variables that make children susceptible to exploitation, with a special focus on male victims. Mechanisms of the offenses are covered, as are the current state of federal laws and strengths and shortcomings of prosecution efforts. Real-life case examples from federal law enforcement describe major forms of exploitation and victim and offender characteristics, with clear focus on such areas as: Sex trafficking risk factors. Methods of victimization by child prostitution. Consumers, traders, and distributors of child pornography. Offender networks in child pornography. The preferential sex tourist. Enticement/grooming processes of the sex traveler. Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children is a ready source of facts geared toward assisting professionals on the frontlines of intervention and prevention with this often-marginalized population, from health care and mental health providers and researchers to legislative bodies and law enforcement, as well as students interested in criminal justice, psychology, or law.

Cham: Springer, 2014. 62p.

By Brian Neil Levine

Nothing in history has transformed the character and practice of child sexual exploitation more than the internet. Individuals who commit child sex crimes use internet services, social networks, and mobile apps to meet minors and each other in ways they cannot in person and to groom victims by normalizing abusive sexual acts. Many of those who commit child sex crimes deceive, coerce, and sexually extort child victims with threats that too often are realized. Individuals who commit child sex crimes use the internet to arrange in-person meetings for hands-on abuse, and they use it to remotely coerce young children to selfproduce sexual and sadistic acts. Whether the abuse is hands-on or remote, the images or videos in which an individual captures their rape of a child are referred to as child sexual abuse materials (CSAM). An ever-growing set of online services are misused daily for the upload and immediate distribution of CSAM, supporting worldwide sharing. The harms to victims of child sexual abuse and exploitation are lifelong.

By Cubides Kovacsics, María Inés; Lanz Sánchez, Alejandro

Since September of 2012, we have been conducting Participatory Action Research (PAR) in the center of Bogotá with sex workers regarding their right to the public space known as 'La Mariposa' (The Butterfly), an open‐air plaza where they often face discriminatory urban praxis and frequent abuse by police officers. While our PAR team has conducted research in 'The Butterfly' for over five years, the objectives, motivation and design of this PAR project were defined by community‐based peer leaders and driven by their concerns and testimonies about the abuse and discrimination they have experienced from police in the plaza. Sex workers in the plaza have described these experiences in terms of unjustified detention, physical and verbal abuse, discrimination and abuse due to sexual orientation, and urban displacement. In this paper, we will discuss our PAR team's action research agenda and our collective work promoting sex worker's re‐appropriation of their right to public space and the city. We will provide concrete examples of ethical dilemmas we have faced in the field and the corresponding praxis our PAR team developed to negotiate and overcome these dilemmas through our 'PARCES' (Translated Acronym: Peers in Action Reaction Against Social Exclusion) methodology. The principles of 'PARCES' and 'action‐reaction' guide our decision‐making process with research actors throughout the construction of the action research design, implementation and analysis in order to incorporate participatory relations and the consideration of research actors' safety, health, and rights within the ethical framework of the project.

Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad de los Andes ‐ Escuela de Gobierno Alberto Lleras Camargo, 2014. 32p.

By Alex P. Schmid

Following terrorist attacks, governments are often quick to express their solidarity with victims of terrorism but as the memory of a terrorist atrocity fades, political attention for the victims also ebbs away – in both government and society. In this Research Paper, Dr. Alex P. Schmid explores the roles of victims of terrorism. The paper looks at various definitions of what it means to be a “victim” and also traces the various initiatives aimed at supporting victims over the last two decades. In many cases, the paper finds, such initiatives have been weak. Victims of terrorism are often one of the best positioned actors to counter violent extremism and their role in this respect is also analysed. While the importance of victims is slowly being recognised, this Paper concludes that there is still a lot more work to be done. The Paper ends with several recommendations which could enhance and improve the position of victims and their role in countering violent extremism

The Hague: The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism , 2012. 28p.

By Roderic G. Broadhurst, Grigitte Bouhours, John Bacon-Shone, and Lena Y Zhong

This report presents the findings of the 2006 Hong Kong United Nations International Crime Victim survey. This was the first time the UNICVS was conducted in Hong Kong SAR China. For this reason, no trends in crime over time are available but where appropriate, the results are compared with those of other main cities in the developed and the developing world. The report shows crime victimization rates for ten types of common crimes: car theft, theft from car, household burglary and attempted burglary, robbery, personal theft, assault, and sexual victimization. In addition, the report examines non-conventional crimes such as corruption and bribery, and consumer fraud. A unique feature of the Hong Kong UNICVS is a set of questions on cyber victimization. The report also presents information on other topics related to criminal justice such as reporting to the police and the police response to victimization, fear of crime, crime prevention measures, and opinions about police and sentencing. Hong Kong’s residents attitudes to restorative justice and victims’ participation in the justice process are also examined. In 2006, the Hong Kong government conducted its regular Crime Victim Survey. This provides a unique opportunity to compare the results of the CVS and the UNICVS, and assess the ways in which different methodologies impact on the results of crime victimization surveys.

Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong and Canberra: Australian National University, 2010. 65p.

By Roderic Broadhurst, Brigitte Bouhours, and John Bacon-Shone

Between 2003 and 2009, the International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAWS) has been conducted in 12 developed and developing countries. The IVAWS is a comprehensive instrument that measures women’s experiences of physical and sexual violence by men, including intimate partners, victims’ help-seeking behaviour and the response of.... was conducted in Hong Kong and, for this reason, no trends in violence over time are available; however, because the IVAWS uses standardised questions and data collection methods, results can be compared with those of the other countries that participated in the survey. The report shows rates of victimisation for seven types of physical..... who the perpetrator was, particularly whether it was an intimate partner, a relative, a friend or acquaintance, or a stranger. Women who had recent incident, such as whether they had reported the assault to the police or victim support services. Drawing on socio-demographic and behavioual information on both respondents and their partners, the report examines the predictors of violent victimisation by partners and non-partners.

Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong; Canberra: Australian National University, 2012. 110p.

By Sara Bianca Taverriti

Irregular migrants face particular challenges in interacting with law enforcement authorities to report a crime, as they fear detection and deportation. This fear, together with their generally precarious situation, makes them particularly vulnerable to crime. This report aims to explain the existing legislation, policy and practices impacting on migrants’ ability to access the Criminal Justice System in Italy, as either victims or witnesses, without running the risk of self-incrimination or deportation. In particular, the report focuses on ‘firewall’ practices – that is, measures that encourage reporting of crime by migrants with irregular status by neutralising the risk and the fear of deportation and expulsion as a consequence of reporting crime. This report is intended to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of these measures, in order to assess their effectiveness in facilitating safe reporting of crime by irregular migrants. Finally, the report will consider the potential of policy reforms in the area of safe reporting, including by considering the potential for implementation in Italy of local measures known as ‘sanctuary policies’. This research contributes to a project on safe reporting of crime for victims and witnesses with irregular migration status in Europe and the United States undertaken by the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford.1 As well as Italy, this project examines the United States, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium. The ultimate aim of the project is to promote learning of best practices and knowledge-exchange on this topic between countries. It also aims to evaluate the legal and political replicability of ‘firewall’ policies across different countries, and in particular the legal replicability of US experiences (for example, that of ‘sanctuary cities’) in European contexts.

Bristol, UK: COMPAS, Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity, 2019. 46p.

By Markus González Beilfuss

According to the European Union (EU) Victims-Directive, victims of crime have the right to be informed, supported and protected, as well as to participate in criminal proceedings. EU Member States retain notable scope for action to transpose these rights into their national legislation, but with the entry into force of this Directive in October 2012, victims' protection entitlements improved significantly within thre remit of EU Law. However, foreign victims with irregular migration status are still in a vulnerable position. Indeed, they are included in the Directive in a particular way. On the one hand, Member States have to take the necessary measures to ensure that the rights set out in the Directive are not conditional on the victim's residence status. According to Art. 1.1, the rights delineated shall apply to all victims in a non-discriminatory manner, including with respect to their residence status. Nevertheless, on the other hand the Directive does not address the conditions of the residence of crime victims in the territory of the Member States. As mentioned in the preamble of the Directive (Recital 10), ‘reporting a crime and participating in criminal proceedings do not create any rights regarding the residence status of the victim’. Victims of crime with irregular migration status fall under the scope of the EU's Return-Directive. As with any third-country nationals staying irregularly in their territories, Member States shall issue them with a return decision. As stated in Art. 6.4 of the Return-Directive, ‘compassionate, humanitarian or other reasons’ allow Member States to grant at any moment a residence permit or the right to stay to any person with irregular migration status. However, EU law does not directly grant these victims of crime the right to stay if they report the case to the police or the criminal justice system. The outcome of the existing legal framework can be particularly harmful for these crime victims, who are exposed to retaliation and can fear deportation if they report the crime to the police. But it also impacts upon the whole criminal justice system, which may lose crucial actors for the prosecution of crime. In the last decade, EU and international law have started to bring in some exceptions to this inconsistent and harmful legal system. According to Directive 2004/81/EC, victims of human trafficking have access to a so-called ‘reflection period’ that allows them to recover and escape from the influence of traffickers. During this period, it is not possible to enforce deportation orders of third-country national victims, and once the reflection period is finished, victims may under certain circumstances access a residence permit.

Oxford, UK: COMPAS, Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity, 2019. 33p.

By Ruben Timmerman, Arjen Leerkes, and Richard Staring

Across Europe, irregular migrants experience considerable difficulty obtaining basic access to justice, protection, and services across a wide range of areas. The structural exclusion of irregular migrants from the integration strategies of European Union (EU) Member States serves in many situations to limit the full exercise of their basic rights, including in particular the right of an individual to safely report to the police if they have been a victim of or witness to crime.1 In recent years, however, efforts have been made to ensure that irregular migrants within Europe are guaranteed equal access to justice and basic rights should they fall victim to crime. Perhaps most notably, Directive 2012/29/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime (hereinafter, Victims’ Directive), which entered into force in 2015, sets out to ensure that the rights of all victims of crime are protected, regardless of nationality or residence status.2 Among other things, the EU Victims’ Directive signifies—at least on paper—the inclusion of irregular migrants within the wider purview of victims’ rights. However, there remain significant challenges and barriers to access to justice and rights for irregular migrant victims of crime within Europe, and there is much work still to be done in effectively realising the vision set out by the EU Victims’ Directive. In particular, it has long been observed by human rights observers, scholars, and practitioners in the field of migration that irregular migrants are often hesitant or unwilling to contact or interact with law enforcement authorities to report crime, either as victims or as witnesses, out of fear of arrest or deportation.3 As a result, these irregular migrants are unable to exercise their basic rights to necessary services, protection, and justice, and are often more vulnerable to perpetrators who are able to exploit their reluctance to report crime. Moreover, the lack of opportunity for irregular migrants to safely report crime results in a lack of crucial intelligence about criminal activity for law enforcement, and significantly reduces authorities’ insight into crime and public safety issues in their communities. As a result of these challenges, both in the United States and across Europe innovative and diverse initiatives have been developed—particularly at the local level—to promote ‘safe reporting’ of crime among irregular migrants, and in turn to ensure greater access to justice for victims.4 In particular, many localities have developed what are commonly referred to as ‘firewall policies’.

Oxford, UK; COMPAS, Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity, 2019. 46p.

Edited by Carol Hagemann-White, Liz Kelly and Thomas Meysen

This book offers insights and perspectives from a study of “Cultural Encounters in Intervention Against Violence” (CEINAV) in four EU-countries. Seeking a deeper understanding of the underpinnings of intervention practices in Germany, Portugal, Slovenia and the United Kingdom, the team explored variations in institutional structures and traditions of law, policing, and social welfare. Theories of structural inequality and ethics are discussed and translated into practice.

Leverkusen-Opladen, Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2019. 320p.

Edited by Veronika Bezinsky, Andrada Filip, Luma Kamel, Claire Laurent, Saide Mobayed, Kathryn Platzer, Michael Platzer

FEMICIDE Volume 6: Violence Against Girls contains the speeches delivered at these side events, at which high-ranking officials and experts on GBV presented comprehensive ways of reducing the risk of such violence, increasing the quality of protection for girl victims, and ending the impunity for perpetrators. It also includes the most recent and most effective prevention and mitigation strategies on gender-based violence against underage girls. In this volume of FEMICIDE we pay particular attention to girl refugees, displaced girls and migrant children, and the specific forms of violence and abuse occurring in the context of their flight. The refugee and migration flows in 2015 and 2016 have often been accompanied by abuses of the rights of children, and girls in particular. In such extreme situations as armed conflict, natural disasters, and other emergencies, girls are especially vulnerable to forced marriage, sexual exploitation, trafficking, psychological and physical intimidation, during all stages of their displacement. As girls are the most vulnerable of the vulnerable and are less likely to seek protection and a remedy, this publication focuses specifically on transnational aspects of violence against children, which are often neglected.

Vienna: Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) Vienna Liaison Office, 2016. 78p.

Edited by Helen Hemblade

Although violence against and murder of older women is a widespread phenomenon across the world, it receives little targeted attention. The simple fact that women get older than men, and as a result must live alone longer, makes them more vulnerable to exploitation, fraud, robbery and even physical abuse. As such, the abuse and femicide of older women is one of the most widespread unpunished crimes, affecting women of all backgrounds, cultures and countries. In many societies, elderly widows are physically and mentally abused, robbed of their right to inherit their assets - eventually losing their societal status. Due to poor education and no independent income, they are financially insecure and dependent on their children or relatives. FEMICIDE Volume VIII aims to analyse the ways in which women, over the age of 55, are psychologically and physically mistreated all around the globe, often resulting in death.

Vienna: Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) Vienna Liaison Office. 2017. 80p.

By Hannah Ford

Until recently, the topic of female sexual offenders remained under-researched, and many incorrect assumptions and beliefs still surround the subject. This book is organised into five parts around eleven chapters. It provides a comprehensive overview of the latest research in this often overlooked area and discusses both adult female offenders and adolescents/younger children who commit sexual offences against children. After an in-depth evaluation of research literature, the author then considers a range of treatment approaches and directions for future research.

Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. 204p.

By Vernon R. Wiehe

Often excused by parents as `kids will be kids' behaviour, sibling abuse remains largely unrecognized. Symptoms of such abuse and its devastating effects on victims go undetected, victims do not receive appropriate therapeutic intervention, and transgressors do not come to the attention of the courts.

Thousand Oaks, CA; London; New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 1997. 232p.

By Julia C. Davidson

Child Sexual Abuse critically evaluates the development of policy and legislative measures to control sex offenders. The last fifteen years has seen increasing concern on the part of the government, criminal justice agencies, the media and the public, regarding child sexual abuse. This concern has been prompted by a series of events including cases inviting media attention and involving the abduction, sexual abuse and murder of young children. The response to this wave of child sexual abuse revelation has been to introduce increasingly punitive legislation regarding the punishment and control of sex offenders (sex offenders are the only group of offenders in British legal history to have their own act), both in custody and in the community. But this response, it is argued here, has developed in a reactionary way to media and public anxiety regarding the punishment and control of sex offenders (who have abused children) and the perceived threat of such offenders in the community.

Abington, Oxon, UK: New York: Routledge-Cavendish, 2008. 193p.

By Ben Mathews

This book offers a timely and detailed exploration and analysis of key contemporary issues and challenges in child sexual abuse, which holds great relevance for scholarly, legal, policy, professional and clinical audiences worldwide. The book draws together the best current evidence about the nature, aetiology, contexts, and sequelae of child sexual abuse. It explores the optimal definition of child sexual abuse, considers sexual abuse in history, and explores new theoretical understandings of children’s rights and other key theories including public health and the Capabilities Approach, and their relevance to child sexual abuse prevention and responses. It examines a selection of the most pressing legal, theoretical, policy and practical challenges in child sexual abuse in the modern world, in developed and developing economies, including institutional child sexual abuse, female genital cutting, child marriage, the use of technology for sexual abuse, and the ethical responsibility and legal liability of major state and religious organisations, and individuals. It examines recent landmark legal and policy developments in all of these areas, drawing in particular on extensive developments from Australia in the wake of its Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It also considers the best evidence about promising strategies and future promising directions in enhancing effective prevention, intervention and responses to child sexual abuse.

Cham, SWIT: Springer, 2019. 322p.

By Jo Woodiwiss

Set against the background of the recovered memory wars, this book explores women’s engagement with narratives of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), recovery and therapeutic discourses and the role they themselves play in the construction and use of abuse narratives whether they have, by their own definition, continuous, recovered or false memories. These are the women whose voices have been largely absent from the debates around recovery and the recovered memory wars and who are mostly constructed as weak, vulnerable and at the mercy of misguided therapists or the ongoing effects of abuse. This is not a book about childhood sexual abuse. Nor is it a book on the recovered memory wars, or on memory. It is also not a general book about therapeutic or self-help culture. Yet these themes do form part of the background against which the research for this book was carried out. They also form part of the background against which women engage in the ongoing process of (re)constructing their own narratives of childhood sexual abuse.

Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 252p.

By Alyson Brown and David Barrett

This book aims to document and analyse the enduring involvement of children in the commercial sex trade in twentieth-century England. It uncovers new evidence to indicate the extent of under-age prostitution over this period, a much-neglected subject despite the increased visibility of children more generally. The authors argue that child prostitution needs to be understood within a broader context of child abuse,<span class='showMoreLessContentElement' style='display: none;'> and that this provides one of the clearest manifestations of the way in which 'deviant groups' can be conceived of as both victims and threats. The picture of child prostitution which emerges is one of exclusion from mainstream society and the law, and remoteness from the agencies set up to help young people in trouble, which were often reluctant to accept the realities of child prostitution. The evidence provided in this book indicates that the circumstances which have led young people into prostitution over the last hundred years amount, at worst, to physical or psychological abuse or neglect, and at best as the result of limited choice.

Abingdon, O xon ; New York: Routledge, 2013. 223p. (Originally published by Willan, 2002)