Protection of Children of Sex Workers from Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking

The pandemic has further exacerbated the vulnerability of children of sex workers, and exposed them to sexual exploitation and trafficking due to lack of work and wages. Society For Help Entire Lower And Rural People is working in three districts of Andhra Pradesh to support young girls by providing them with access to education, skill and vocational training and peer counseling to make them independent. ₹2,000 is the cost of providing vocational / livelihood training for one child for a 3 month period.

Commercial Sex Workers are one of the most vulnerable group severely affected by the COVID 19 pandemic outbreak. For several sex workers sex work is the sole means of their survivaland returning back to home is never be an option due to lack of income.But it became invariable for them to return back due to ceaseless lockdowns, curfews and other restrictions enforced by the state that abruptly affected their income. This impact the girls and young women among sex workers families to expose various forms of violence.

The key findings from an assessment by HELP organisation reveals that, aggravation of financial difficulties as the foremost challenge for sex workers posed by COVID as 100% respondents reported a reduction in their monthly earnings from 33% - 100% fall, whereas 88% reported having no alternative source of income and 61% never heard of alternate livelihood opportunities.Children of sex workers fall prey to sexual exploitation and even early/child marriages.However, for most adolescent girls from sex workers families, lack of viable skills or education, and limited awareness of the opportunities outside the prostitution localities were primary barriers to pursuing other opportunities/alternative livelihoods. They are in need of a helping hand.

The project is proposed to address the issue through education support, orientation on life skills and also imparting training in market demand-oriented livelihoods/employment opportunities to girls and young women among three districts of Andhra Pradesh. The vulnerable girls and young women (children of sex workers) from the prostitution localities will be identified by the community volunteers. They will be trained as ToT on child rights and child protection including the ill effects of child marriages, child sexual abuse and exploitation and trafficking. They will be provided with peer counselling by the trained from ToT on importance of education and skill trainings.

The mothers of adolescent girls and young women who suffering without income due to down fall in business in the wake of COVID 19 outbreak will be supported for alternative livelihoods for betterment of their socio-economic standards. The improved financial condition of families of sex workers will automatically provide a sense of courage and confidence among the sex workers and their children to cope up with the challenges of different forms of violence against their including child sexual abuse & exploitation, child marriage and trafficking. The adolescent girls interested in education will be supported with books, bags, school fee and other relevant material. 

The children of sex workers who are adolescent girls and young women are empowered with enough knowledge on child rights, issues and challenges that harm their blossom childhood. They walk towards local schools ensuring their remarkable retention rate in education. The life skill education provides them enough knowledge in communication skills, decision making, problem solving, critical thinking and a sense of good and bad along with interpersonal relations and so on.The training courses imparted become handy to the young women to acquire decent job opportunities/self-employment where they could stand on their own without dependency. Formation and strengthening of community-based child clubs will sustain the results of these interventions.

Thereby, the enhanced scope of various forms of violence including child sexual abuse, exploitation, child marriage and trafficking of adolescent girls and young women will get addressed. They are empowered to say “NO” to harmful social practices that affect their childhood. The project intervention on socio-economic empowerment of sex workers will results in their financial security, social protection, crisis response at individual level, and institutional development at community levels. The awareness created among sex workers on existing support services, benefits from government welfare schemes improve accessibility of social entitlements.