The last commodity: child prostitution in the developing world
Sachs, A.
World Watch 7(4): 24-30
1994
ISSN/ISBN: 0896-0615 PMID: 12288929 Document Number: 289462
There is an enormous supply of children and young adolescents worldwide who have sex for money and other forms of tangible compensation. Child prostitution is far from new, but it has only recently grown to become a multibillion dollar industry with children bought, sold, and traded like other mass-produced goods. Brazil has 250,000-500,000 children in the sex trade and the number of children involved in Colombia, Russia, and Benin is growing rapidly. Asia is the center of child prostitution with an estimated 60,000 child prostitutes in the Philippines, 400,000 in India, and 800,000 in Thailand. Most of the sex workers are under 16 years old and most are female, although some parts of the world offer almost exclusively young male prostitutes. Indeed, almost all of Sri Lanka's 20,000-30,000 child prostitutes are boys. The overwhelming majority of children who have sex for money do so out of economic need, particularly in the context of widespread rural poverty. Some children leave home on their own in search of opportunity, some are stolen or sold into slavery, and others are kicked out of their homes. An International Labor Organization study found that a woman in the sex industry in Thailand can make about 25 times more than she could in any other occupation open to her. Such financial reward is often hard to resist. Demand for child prostitutes comes from a range of sources. In Asia, child prostitution, and prostitution in general, is deeply embedded in many local and national cultures. For example, an Harvard University researcher has determined that 75% of all men in Thailand have had sex with a prostitute. While nationals frequent and effectively support the prostitution industry, many foreign travelers also visit countries in search of sex. Young prostitutes are in particular demand due to the myth that youngsters are somehow relatively virgin and bereft of infection with sexually transmitted diseases. The author discusses the causes of rural poverty, the growth of sex tourism in Asia during the Vietnam War, government complicity in the industry, and the need to develop political will to end child prostitution.