We should all be shamed by the sexual exploitation of girls

The sexual exploitation of young girls is a cruel form of gender-based violence which stifles the lives of young women. Having experienced violence within their homes, they meet more violence on the streets. These young girls become trapped in a web of poverty, deceit , physical and sexual violence, and they can become lost to the world through child trafficking.

Sixteen-year-old Neo spent three days being sexually and physically abused by white men in Qua-Qua, South Africa. She was forced to drink urine and only after she became ill was she released to get medical attention. Neo took the opportunity to hitch-hike back home to Lesotho.

Lipalesa, now 20, ran away from home at the age of 15 after she saw her father kill her mother. Her mother lost her life for not agreeing to her husband”s plans to marry another woman. The only way the young girl could survive was to become a sex worker. She now counts wealthy men and senior government officials among her clients.

These are just two of the many harrowing stories young women who pass through the gates of the Lesotho Child Counseling Unit (LCCU) tell. Both Neo and Lipalesa say they are tired and feel empty from the lives they have been forced to lead.

The sexual exploitation of young girls is a cruel form of gender-based violence which stifles the lives of young women. Having experienced violence within their homes, they meet more violence on the streets. These young girls become trapped in a web of poverty, deceit, physical and sexual violence, and they can become lost to the world through child trafficking.

The founder and coordinator of the LCCU Lydia Muso,  says that 90 percent of the children who experience sexual abuse are girls. In Lesotho a high percentage of these child sex workers, even as young as 13, find themselves in the hands of South African child traffickers.

The Child Counseling Unit says there are hotels, brothels in Maseru, as well as on the outskirts of the capital, where children are lure by the traffickers. They are promised work, or, they are abducted.

Many of the children who end up on the streets are among the country”s more than 14,000 AIDS orphans and these are the most vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Their vulnerability heightens their chances of being infected with the same virus which caused the death of their parents.

Muso estimates that the LCCU receives about five cases of child sexual abuse each month, but the results of getting assistance and justice for these children is ‘"nil’".

‘"I don”t see any hope in this whole thing as long as the process of helping children is incomplete… I feel mostly sad for the children who may not have a strong resiliency. It is sad,’" Muso says.

Her frustration is caused by our complacency. Do we not speak out or make noise and take action because these children are poor and orphaned? Do we think they are expendable? Have we become so hard-hearted to the plight of girls?

The conspiracy of silence around this issue from government officials, the police and other stakeholders, and ourselves, is a virtual death sentence for these young girls.

This silence also makes a mockery of international rights instruments such as the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on Sex Trafficking. Lesotho signed the Optional Protocol in September 2000 and ratified it on September 24 this year.

Signing these conventions and protocols is not enough. Why we put pen to paper  becomes more and more of a mystery as long as children in Lesotho are counted among the millions of children worldwide who are caught up in sex trafficking and the commercial sex trade.

Breaking the silence has been a cry for a long time in the fight against gender-based violence. The trafficking and sexual exploitation of girls by adults is a form of gender-based violence which needs to be exposed more and more by the media in Lesotho and neighbouring countries where these girls are taken.

On our very doorsteps are many of the ills which we think are far away.

Selloane Mokuku is a member of Lesotho’s Media Arts Watch Association (MAWA) Tsireletso and a child rights activist.

 This article is part of the GEM Opinion and Commentary Service that provides views and perspectives on current events.