Commercial sexual exploitation
Many trafficked children are destined for sex work. But many other children who have not been trafficked are also sexually abused for commercial gain: at least 97 countries have reported cases of the commercial sexual exploitation of children. ... The last recorded estimates indicate that as many as two million children, mainly girls but also a significant number of boys, are sexually exploited in the multi-billion dollar commercial sex trade each year. At any time, therefore, several million children will be engaged in sex work. In Southeast Asia alone, it is thought that one million children are involved.
Children in the sex industry
Although many children are forced to enter the sex industry, others are driven to it out of economic necessity, attracted by the high incomes they can earn. In Viet Nam, for example, children working as prostitutes in central Hanoi can earn £630 (US$1,000) per month, when the average monthly wage is £15 (US$25).
The sex industry, for both adults and children, comes in many different forms, some organized, some more casual. At the more formal end of the spectrum, sex is specifically traded as a commodity – bought and sold through brothels and bars, for example, or in the form of pornographic images.
Children may also work independently, offering themselves for cash, as do many of the 10,000 to 15,000 boys selling themselves to sex tourists on the beaches of Sri Lanka.
Many of the children working in the sex industry do so in horrific conditions. This is especially true of children who have been trafficked, who may be effectively imprisoned in the brothels.... Children in brothels have also been drugged to make them submissive – on the other hand, they may have turned to prostitution to maintain a drug habit.
Child pornography
One of the most insidious and pervasive aspects of the commercial sexual exploitation of children is through the distribution of child pornography. In the past, this was distributed to a more limited extent through photographs and magazines. But the internet has opened up a plethora of new channels and drawn in many new users.... A child pornography ring that has since been broken up, the “Wonderland Club”, had 180 known members spread across 49 countries, including the UK, possessing 750,000 pornographic images and over 1,800 hours of digital video.
