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Six Clarity and consistency in understanding child exploitation: a UK perspective

  • Aarti Kapoor
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Child slavery now
This chapter is in the book Child slavery now

Abstract

This chapter examines ways in which child exploitation is being monitored and policed, and provides a detailed conceptual and policy analysis of the experience of the United Kingdom. It discusses the laws and common understandings of child exploitation in order to draw together some key elements of what child exploitation, as a distinct type of child abuse, consists of. This will ultimately help practitioners and policy makers in developing more consistent systems in response to this problem. Although the wider concept of exploitation is analysed here, it is accepted that this largely focuses on the fact of child trafficking, with numerous forms of child exploitation as the end purpose of trafficking, including sexual exploitation, labour exploitation/forced labour, drug trafficking/smuggling/dealing, illegal adoption, servile/forced marriage, and begging. There remain arguments about definition and boundaries, and the growth of sectional and sectoral interests does not help the process of developing coherent and clear responses. The chapter explores such contested conceptual (and political) debates by locating the UK experience in the context of international conventions, notably the Palermo Protocol.

Abstract

This chapter examines ways in which child exploitation is being monitored and policed, and provides a detailed conceptual and policy analysis of the experience of the United Kingdom. It discusses the laws and common understandings of child exploitation in order to draw together some key elements of what child exploitation, as a distinct type of child abuse, consists of. This will ultimately help practitioners and policy makers in developing more consistent systems in response to this problem. Although the wider concept of exploitation is analysed here, it is accepted that this largely focuses on the fact of child trafficking, with numerous forms of child exploitation as the end purpose of trafficking, including sexual exploitation, labour exploitation/forced labour, drug trafficking/smuggling/dealing, illegal adoption, servile/forced marriage, and begging. There remain arguments about definition and boundaries, and the growth of sectional and sectoral interests does not help the process of developing coherent and clear responses. The chapter explores such contested conceptual (and political) debates by locating the UK experience in the context of international conventions, notably the Palermo Protocol.

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