論簽證便捷措施下的孩童性剝削問題

On Child Sex Exploitation Caused by Measures Promoting Visa Facilitation

對孩童施予性剝削的犯罪已是國際社會普遍承認之人權違反行為，但因各種原因受到壓迫從事性服務的孩童人數卻未減反增，並且極可能因為旅遊目的地國簽證便捷化措施的採行而變得更為嚴重及難以防範。UNICEF估計，目前每年約有200萬孩童成為性剝削的受害者。本文認為，隨著簽證核發流程的寬鬆化，孩童性剝削的受害者人數還會再增加；易言之，便捷化的簽證措施與旅遊目的地國的孩童性剝削之間具有正相關。倘若國家或國際組織基於經濟發展的考量在倡議或推廣簽證便捷化之餘，沒有關注孩童權益與提供配套的旅遊規範，便利化的國際旅遊將極可能成為加害旅遊目的地國孩童基本人權之主因。

Sexual exploitation of children is a violation of human rights recognized by international society; however, for many reasons, we have witnessed the increased number of commercial sexual exploitation of children rather than the number of declining. Worse still, this situation would be difficult to prevent from under the condition of policy for visa facilitation conducted by destination countries. In fact, an estimated 2 million children are sexually exploited around the world annually, according to UNICEF. This paper, therefore, argues that the number of victims would be getting higher during the process to speed up visa facilitation. In other words, there is a positive correlation between visa facilitation and the sexual exploitation of children in many destination countries. In this sense, if countries or international organizations do not pay their attention to and offer enough concern of the legal regulation of child’s rights protection while initiating facilitation measures allowing visa liberalization. One possible outcome of that is doomed to be a serious human rights violation affecting children in destination countries.