Prohibited Sexual Behavior and Sexual Violence

Adult Sexual Contact with Children: Child Prostitution 4

As the preceding sections have made clear, at the root of child prostitution lies poverty. This was true of Victorian England with its child prostitutes, and it is still true today in many developing countries. It is poverty that forces some girls and boys to support their parents and siblings as “sex workers”. Others find themselves in even more desparate circumstances: As abandoned “street children”, they depend on begging, stealing, and prostitution for their very survival.
It should therefore be well understood that the commendable efforts by national and international organizations to end child prostitution can succeed only to the extent that they contribute to eliminating poverty. Organizing congresses, stretching the definition of “childhood” to include adolescence, enacting stricter criminal laws, arresting and punishing customers, closing brothels etc. can do nothing more than treat the symptoms of a much more serious underlying condition. All of these well-meaning efforts miss their real target if they do not address the political and economic causes of poverty. Even the grandest “cleaning-up campaign” will not help the children as long their poverty persists and keeps forcing them into prostitution.

Fighting sexual exploitation and poverty
This UNICEF-supported congress of 2001 in Yokohama, Japan, was specific in many of its demands for stricter laws and law enforcement, but with regard to poverty it remained content with generalities: “We welcome the following developments - the greater emphasis on the rights of the child---, - better educational access for children, social support measures for families and children to counter poverty”.
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