Child victims of modern slavery: making sense of commercial child sexual exploitation through an intersectionality lens

Pearson Nkhoma

Chapter 19 in Handbook on Intersectionality and Social Work, 2026, pp 253-269 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Children who experience commercial sexual exploitation are often reduced to a single identity: their age. Legal and policy frameworks built around the age of consent have done important work and helped to categorise commercial sexual exploitation as one of the worst forms of child labour. However, such lenses do not capture the whole story. This chapter argues that to truly understand how children become victims of modern slavery and experience commercial sexual exploitation as a form of child slavery, we need to look at the full picture of their lives, namely their social class, their gender, whether they have lost a parent, where they live, and the broader global forces shaping their circumstances. Drawing on intersectionality lens, and participatory research with children and young women in Malawi who have lived through commercial sexual exploitation, the chapter shows how these overlapping identities and structures do not simply add up but intensify one another, creating conditions where exploitation through slavery becomes almost inevitable for such children. The analysis also draws on the music of Malawian artist Lawrence Mbenjere, whose lyrics offer a powerful, culturally grounded critique of the social class fuelling modern slavery. Ultimately, the chapter makes the case that protecting children from exploitation demands more than rescuing them or updating laws. It requires honestly confronting the intersecting inequalities, whether historical, economic, gendered, or global, that make some childhoods far more precariously unequal than others.

Keywords: Intersectionality; Modern Slavery; Trafficking; Sexual Exploitation; Child Rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035324453
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