by Chiru Murage

The World Cup this past summer attracted 600,000 fans that descended upon Brazil from more than 180 countries to join the month-long celebration of fútbol.  But beyond the buzzing, vibrant scene, on the other side of the stadium walls, lay a world disconnected from the joy of the tournament, wrought with destitution and violence. This is where sexual exploitation thrives, leaving thousands of victims in its wake and showing no signs of stopping any time soon.

Though there are benefits to hosting the tournament, such as an exponential boom in the tourism industry, this year’s World Cup caused widespread civil unrest across Brazil months before the games even began.  The government devoted substantial resources to putting on the spectacle. According to its Ministry of Sports, Brazil spent a reported $11.63 billion on hosting the event, making it the most expensive World Cup to date.  Among other preparations, the funds went toward constructing 12 stadiums in 12 different cities, displacing 250,000 residents in the process.  Demonstrations began in June 2013 over the exorbitant spending on the World Cup despite pressing social issues in nutrition, access to water, education, healthcare, and urban violence.  

According to the World Bank Poverty Assessment, the level of poverty in Brazil is well above the norm for a middle-income country.  An estimated 21.4% of Brazil’s population lives below the poverty line, and 4.2% below the extreme poverty line.  Most of the country’s poor live in the infamous favelas, sprawling slums that surround cities for miles. Favelas have become home to gangs, drug cartels, and rampant prostitution. Such widespread poverty in the country has created the perfect conditions for the establishment of a booming sex industry in the country. Under Brazilian law, prostitution above the age of 18 is legal, although sexual exploitation is not.  Even though these laws are intended to discourage illegal exploitation, many Brazilians have become victims of human sex trafficking and prostitution. Some forewarned that not only prostitution, but also sexual exploitation of children, would increase during the World Cup—after all, like other large events, it tends to increase the likelihood and profitability of illegal activities.  The World Cup set the stage not only for the most celebrated sporting event of this year, but also for turning the world’s eye toward egregious human rights violations: a ever-growing issue in Brazil. 

Three different—though intertwined—types of sexual victimization of children occur in Brazil. Child sexual exploitation encompasses any type of victimization, from parental sexual abuse to trafficking abroad for the purpose of sex work. Child prostitution and sex tourism occur mostly in favelas and coastal tourist destinations, where foreigners engage in sexual activities with young girls or boys, and children sell their bodies to them either by force or by necessity of circumstance.  Lastly, child sex trafficking falls under the umbrella of human trafficking, defined as: 

“The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.” 
 

Large-scale human sex trafficking is not a new problem in Brazil. In fact, trafficking growth has paralleled the country’s recent economic growth, as it has transformed into a “large source and destination for men, women and children who become victims of sex trafficking and forced labor.”  Additionally, criminal sentences for human trafficking are much lighter than for drug trafficking, and this reduced risk makes it a more lucrative business. Cities like Recife, Fortaleza and Rio de Janeiro are hubs of child prostitution and sexual exploitation. The non-profit National Forum for the Prevention of Child Labor reports that the number of estimated child sex workers in Brazil was at 500,000 in 2012.  These sex workers, like their of-age counterparts, also flocked to the World Cup host cities, by choice or by force, to capitalize on influx of customers.

In Brazil, child sex trafficking is at epidemic levels, falling just behind the world leader, Thailand. Some are trafficked abroad to Western Europe, Japan, and the United States, while others are victimized in the coastal and resort areas of Brazil that are known for child-sex tourism. An estimated 200,000 men travel from all over the world to Brazil in search of “easy and cheap bodies.”  Forced into prostitution by poverty, drugs, family, or a mixture of all three, many underage children, some as young as nine years old, roam the beaches and streets day and night trying to make a few reals. The child sex industry is so institutionalized in the country that it has grown to involve a whole tourism network, from travel agencies, to hotels, to taxis.  The World Cup provided huge opportunity for the perpetuation of the industry, as there were allegedly all-inclusive packages, complete with a hotel room, game tickets, and an underage “guest” of choice.

The causes of child sexual exploitation on such a large scale are complex and multi-dimensional, but one is quite evident: chronic poverty It is not uncommon for children’s own parents to encourage or force the child into the business in order to supplement the family’s meager income.

“These girls come from extreme poverty, a culture of social exclusion and a tradition of profound disrespect for women.”
         -Antonia Lima Sousa, State Prosecutor

There already exists a flourishing legal sex industry, as highlighted by the free English classes offered by the regional Association of Prostitution to of-age prostitutes in preparation for the World Cup.  Child prostitutes evaded efforts of authorities to crack down prior to the games by using falsified documents that stated their ages as 18, the legal age of prostitution.  As with prostitution, the drug trade was also expected to increase during the tournament. Child sex work and the drug trade are closely linked, not only because they both proliferate the same areas, but also because the two feed on each other. They are similar in the ways they are organized and in how deeply rooted they are in Brazilian society. Child sex workers often get addicted to drugs, whether by force or circumstance, and in turn, drug gangs and cartels run brothels and trafficking rings. Due to restrictions and increased pressure from authorities, organized drug trade has looked to sexual exploitation as a means to compensate for lost income. Criminal organizations like drug gangs follow a classic business model, identifying a new market and a new means of making money.  This expansion leaves children even more vulnerable as they have become commodities in Brazil’s poor communities as one type of exploitation can easily lead to others. 

As more international focus turns to the issue in Brazil, there seem to be efforts toward making progress in prevention of child sexual exploitation and care for its victims. The U.S. State Department releases an annual Trafficking in Persons Report, in which Brazil has steadily been a Tier 2 country for human trafficking for the past decade. Tier 2 countries are those “whose governments do not fully comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.”   There are laws in place intended to deter child sex abuse. A person is sentenced between six to ten years if charged with sexual abuse of a child under 14, and 4 years if charged with corruption of minors if the child is between 14 and 18 years of age.  The government conducted a multi-media campaign against commercialized sexual exploitation of children during the 2011 Carnival holiday period that broadcasted in 15 Brazilian cities, 12 of which hosted the World Cup this summer. Anti-trafficking offices are run by the government in 16 of the country’s 26 states and refer victims to government offices and non-governmental organizations (NGO) alike, but these offices reportedly did not fund specialized services for victims of sex trafficking. Lack of uniform laws concerning trafficking across all 26 states makes combating the problem more complicated. There are discrepancies in statistical reporting, as different government entities rely on different definitions to count victims of trafficking. Federal authorities have maintained cooperation with international organizations and anti-trafficking NGOs, while police departments have increased the number of criminal investigations into instances of suspected sexual exploitation of children. These investigations included the arrest of several police officers for their alleged connections to the trade, though none were indicted. Despite continued prevention efforts targeting child sex tourism, no reported convictions of child sex tourists had occurred by the time of the 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report. 

The young victims of sexual exploitation in Brazil often grow to perpetuate the cycle themselves, whether by forcing their own children or by facilitating the trade by becoming pimps. Because of the damage caused from this systematic abuse, many children simply do not have other employment options, as few receive an education. Many victims become pregnant at a young age and then are forced to continue sex work in order to support a child. Others are so addicted to drugs like crack cocaine that sex work only serves to feed their habit. Child sex exploitation is self-sustainable in this sense, that it creates a generation of traumatized victims, few of whom are able to pull themselves out of the cycle. 

In 2013, Brazil announced a three-year plan to combat and reduce human trafficking, pledging to dedicate $2.9 million toward implementing it. Action against growing human trafficking comes in the wake of a 2012 report released by the Brazilian Ministry of Justice informing that 500 Brazilian victims of human trafficking left the country between 2005 and 2011. The plan includes a revision of human trafficking laws and penalties, and tougher and more thorough border controls. In keeping with the plan, Brazil joined nine other countries in the Blue Heart Campaign against Human Trafficking, launched by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The campaign “seeks to encourage involvement and inspire action to help to stop the crime of human trafficking.”   

Despite strides to ameliorate the dire situation there have been major setbacks. In 2012, a Brazilian Supreme Court acquitted a man accused of raping three 12-year-old girls on the basis that they were sex workers and therefore had consented. This ruling was almost an official legitimization of the child sex trade. According to Atila Roque, Executive Director of Amnesty International in Brazil, the ruling “effectively gives a green light to rapists and if it prevails could dissuade other survivors of sexual abuse from reporting these crimes.”  This is an issue that requires attention from all angles and by a multitude of agencies and organizations if Brazil hopes to make progress in its prevention and eradication. 

NGOs operating in Brazil such as Pink House provide services to young girls affected by sexual violence, prostitution, or abandonment. Girls can seek refuge at a safe house where they get counseling, education, and temporary escape from the streets. 8 Pink House is so effective because it offers girls means to have an alternative to prostitution. NGOs are crucial in combating sexual exploitation of children: they form relationships with communities and work toward not only supporting victims but also eliminating the cause of sexual exploitation. This way of addressing the problem is effective because it is premised on the notion that every girl or boy who is saved from a life of prostitution makes a difference. 

The 2014 World Cup has brought international attention to the problem of child sex exploitation in Brazil. It unveiled that a lot more progress needs to be made to eradicate child sex tourism, exploitation, and trafficking in the country. Critics have accused the Brazilian government of adopting an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality for the World Cup, saying that the government was more concerned with a temporary quick fix instead of trying to address the root causes of the issue. International attention has made a positive impact on victims of this crisis, as it has caused more global efforts to help victims and prevent further victimization. More people have started to pay attention to the epidemic, and therefore more people have joined the fight against it. In May 2014, a global network of religious groups and organizations against human trafficking launched a campaign against child prostitution during the World Cup.  

Efforts like those, however, fall short in the war against sexual exploitation. As more measures are implemented, the industry adapts and becomes increasingly difficult to track. There are more cases emerging globally of sexual exploitation via the Internet, where children are forced to perform sexual acts while in video conference with an adult hundreds of miles away.  The way the child sex industry has evolved is particularly dangerous in that it makes it more difficult to track down perpetrators and victims. Because the actors are usually found in countries like Brazil where the problem is epidemic and institutionalized, perpetrating the crime is becoming easier. 

The World Cup helped to shed light on the plight of child sex trade victims in Brazil, but the reality is that children all over the world are suffering, in places easily overlooked.

​

​

​