Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
(CSEC) Program

In 1999 the Fund for Nonviolence observed a growing international movement to stop CSEC and a relative scarcity of U.S. based advocacy within it. In light of the fact that U.S. residents are highly implicated in this form of oppression—as clients, traffickers and exploiters—the Fund chose to support a national campaign to expose the realities of CSEC in the U.S. and to contribute to stopping it worldwide. We continue to see a need for an effective effort in the U.S. to combat this form of exploitation and to address the persistent high level of public ignorance and denial regarding the scale of the problem within this nation. Thus we are currently focusing our funding on efforts to build a national movement in the U.S.; international efforts to combat CSEC (including programs addressing the impacts of U.S. residents exploiting children outside the country) will be supported in so far as they help inform U.S. based work and movement building.

VISION
We seek a society that supports, nurtures, and values all children and in which no child is sexually exploited.

MISSION
The mission of the CSEC Program is to foster social, cultural and political change to prevent all forms of commercial sexual exploitation of children including prostitution, survival sex, pornography, and trafficking for sexual purposes.

CURRENT GOAL
To support the emergence of an effective national movement that:
• Involves more experiential youth and adults as leaders and activists in combating CSEC
• Creates and implements a public education campaign exposing the magnitude of the CSEC problem--highlighting the reality of adults as exploiters and children and youth as victims--and advocates for children’s human rights
• Promotes US participation in and compliance with international agreements on CSEC
• Advocates for comprehensive public policy approaches to combating CSEC that include prevention, public education, and alternatives to incarceration and that do not rely solely on incarceration of perpetrators