Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation: A Suggested Human Rights Approach Special Issue: Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children 2 International Journal of Children's Rights 1994

2 Int'l J. Child. Rts. 45 (1994)
Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation: A Suggested Human Rights Approach

handle is hein.journals/intjchrb2 and id is 55 raw text is: The International Journal of Children's Rights 2: 45-59, 1994.
© 1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
Child sexual abuse and exploitation:
A suggested human rights approach
GERALDINE VAN BUEREN*
Programme on International Rights of the Child, Faculty of Law, Queen Mary and Westfield
College, University of London, U.K.
Introduction
The sexual abuse and exploitation of children, albeit in different guises, is
universal, in part because of the subordinate status of children. Despite this
sexual abuse within the family is not regarded as a human rights issue. Even
where protection against sexual exploitation is conceptualised as an aspect
of human rights, it is classified as a health or economic issue requiring only
progressive implementation. It is assumed that a petitioning system would have
no relevance for abused children, and that the Convention on the Rights of
the Child 1989, which was established to work on a cooperative basis, would
not operate as effectively if it incorporated a child petitioning system. In
addition, because of the lack of gravity attributed generally by international
lawyers to the sexual exploitation of children, such exploitation has not been
included in a draft international criminal code. In an attempt to raise the
level of protection of children at their most vulnerable, this article argues
that the prevention of child sexual abuse and exploitation, and the protection
of those subjected to it, ought to be conceptualised within a framework of
international human rights law.
Child sexual abuse
The sexual abuse and exploitation of children violates the inherent dignity
and worth of the child and usually involves cumulative breaches of several
rights, the most common being unlawful interference with family life, breaches
of privacy rights, health and leisure,' all of which are equally essential for
the healthy development and survival of the child. The two concepts of child
sexual abuse and exploitation are expressly set out side by side in the
Convention on the Rights of the Child.2 Yet no clear distinction was made
* This article is based upon a paper presented to the University of Tromso, Seminar on Children,
Sexuality and Abuse.
Arts. 16, 24 and 31 Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989.
2 Art. 34.

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