7/5/2004
Sexual Exploitation Of Children Rises In Gambia

Sex tourism from Britain and Northern Europe and “sugar daddy” relationships with Gambian adults have resulted in an increase in sexual abuse and exploitation of children in the West African country, a joint report from UNICEF and the Gambian government reveals.

Gambia is one of the world’s least developed countries. The 1.5 million inhabitants live of a yearly $330 per capita, which makes Gambia a vulnerable target for unscrupulous visitors such as suspected or convicted paedophiles. They enter the country in search of a low-profile location to commit their crimes against children silently and with impunity, the report quotes a previous UNICEF study as saying.

Last year as many as 100,000 tourists, mainly from Britain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Germany, visited Gambia. Giving details of the exploitation of girls from anecdotal evidence, the report says sex tourism prostitution has engendered consumerism, with girls saying that being a sex worker "means having access to lots of cash to buy jeans, shoes, to go to beauty salons for hair and nail care to show off at beach parties and nightclubs."
The child prostitutes did not consider themselves as children and did not see why they would require special protection because of their age, they were quoted.

Gambia passed a Tourism Offences Act last year which clearly states that a person who makes an unlawful sexual advance to a child commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of 20,000 Dalasis (about $688) or imprisonment for a maximum of two years, or both.

The report notes that by moving to urban areas, many families have been uprooted from rural surroundings where the extended family and kinship network had served not only as a system of safety net, but also as a system of collective watch and responsibility for children in every respect. This has let to so-called "sugar daddies" - adult Gambian men, including teachers and other trusted adults - exploiting local girls in exchange for money and gifts.

Parents in the 90 per cent Muslim country complained that children's ideas about Western values and lifestyles, as well as the increasing clamour over children's rights, were making it difficult for them to have control over their children. Many community leaders also expressed the fear that offering sex education in schools "was a Western notion that simply encouraged children to engage in immoral behaviour."