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Tsunami orphans at sexual abuse risk
January 3, 2005
Colombo -- Save the Children Fund in Sri Lanka said children orphaned by the
tsunami are at risk of sexual abuse in camps or being sold to child
traffickers.
The international children's aid organization said it has evidence that
children in a camp have been bought for about $40, the Scotsman.com reported
Sunday.
"We believe two children were sold to traffickers from Colombo. We don't know
why they have taken the children but we fear they will be passed on to
pedophiles or sold for some other form of exploitation," said Tahirih Ayn, a
child protection officer with Save the Children Fund Sri Lanka.
The number of children orphaned or separated from their parents after the
tsunami, which killed nearly 30,000 people in Sri Lanka, is unknown, but in one
camp of displaced persons, about 40 percent were children.
A Save the Children Fund official said the group feared that children might be
sexually exploited by adults in the camps and it recommended children be
separated from adults. The group also said some parents who lost children in
the disaster have taken orphaned children illegally.
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