In 2016 it was the 20th anniversary of the First World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (Sweden, Stockholm); event which positioned the issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children in the public eye for the first time and established the basis for the first plans of action to address the phenomenon in the region.
On the occasion of this anniversary it was deemed appropriate to conduct a survey of the status of the issue in the region, which led to this Fifteenth Report to the Secretary General of the OAS: Addressing Sexual Exploitation, Trafficking in and Smuggling of Children in CARICOM Member States.
This is a qualitative study based on secondary sources of information on the Member States of CARICOM: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
The information contained in this paper was obtained from the Reports that States submit to the Committee on the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Concluding Observations that the Committee drafts in response.
This report is in two parts. The first contains information compiled from the reports, arranged methodically according to the Stockholm classification. The second part contains conclusions and recommendations arising from an analysis of the information, highlighting common features among the States of the region, issues that show progress and others that should be reviewed in the light of theoretical, conceptual and practical developments that have occurred over the last twenty years and more.