Thank you for inviting me and for inviting us to participate in this study.
Beyond Borders ECPAT Canada is the Canadian affiliate of ECPAT, headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand. ECPAT is the worldwide network of organizations working to end the sexual exploitation of children. ECPAT is an acronym for the phrase “end child prostitution, pornography and trafficking”.
Within the general topic of the study, we wish to address the vulnerabilities of children to sexual exploitation created and exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. In general, the vulnerabilities of children to sexual exploitation have been both created and exacerbated by the pandemic.
Protective parents have died from COVID, rendering children vulnerable. Funds directed to protecting vulnerable children from sexual exploitation have been diverted to combatting COVID. Programs combatting child sexual exploitation have been impacted by the overall shutdown in reaction to COVID. School closures to protect against COVID have meant that child sexual abuse at home is not reported at schools. Children in sexually abusive home situations have, because of the COVID-related shutdowns, been trapped in these situations.
For those with access to the Internet, the increased time children spend on the Internet stuck at home because of COVID increases their vulnerability to sexual grooming and cyber-bullying by child predators. Children in detention suffer from decreased monitoring by the International Committee for the Red Cross, decreased as a COVID-prevention measure, leaving them open to increased abuse, including sexual abuse, from detention staff.
COVID prevention measures have impacted adversely on the delivery of humanitarian aid generally, including aid for the protection of children from sexual abuse. The shutdown of economies to protect against COVID has led to increased poverty, prompting some parents to sell their children into underage marriages or the sex trade.
ECPAT in April 2020 posted a publication titled “Why children are at risk of sexual exploitation during COVID-19” and wrote:
When entertainment venues that traffickers frequently use to seek customers and exploit child victims are shut down, there is a likelihood that child trafficking patterns will adapt... Child marriages are...likely to increase as teenagers from rural areas are highly affected by the worsening economic situation, being forced to migrate to urban areas and to live on the streets.
The variety of problems that COVID presents that create and exacerbate the vulnerability of children to sexual abuse require a variety of solutions. Because of limited time, I only want to address one component, the increase in child marriages.
Global Affairs already had a strong policy updated on its website on August 20, 2020 against child, early and forced marriages.
The trouble with that policy is that, in a Canadian context, it rings hollow in light of the widespread availability and practice of child marriages in Canada itself. The Constitution of Canada gives Parliament exclusive jurisdiction to regulate the legal capacity to enter into marriage. The provinces have exclusive competence over the formalities of marriage.
Parliament, in the exercise of its powers over the legal capacity to enter into marriage, allows for child marriages. The federal Civil Marriage Act allows for marriages of children aged 16 and 17, and the power has been widely used.
A study of child marriages in Canada published in January this year concluded:
Demographic patterns of child marriage in Canada are similar to those observed in many low- and middle-income countries. Girls were far more likely to be married as children than boys and typically wed much older spouses.
The study pointed to a discrepancy between Canada's domestic law and its foreign policy. The global COVID-related problems relating to child sexual abuse would be difficult for Canada to resolve on our own. Changing Canadian law to prevent child marriages is something entirely within the power of the Parliament of Canada. We should be doing this to prevent the sexual exploitation of children at home. By doing so, we would make our efforts to prevent the sexual exploitation of children through child marriage abroad more credible.
Thank you very much.