Ana (not her real name), 18, left home years ago to escape violence and neglect. She became a prostitute to support her drug addiction, and is now HIV positive. She hopes to stop prostitution and drug-taking to secure a better life for her expected child.
Photo: UNICEF/HQ01-0434/Claudio Versiani
Commercial sexual exploitation is child sex abuse involving some kind of payment. It’s thought that some two million children, mainly but not only girls, are exploited in the commercial sex trade each year. Children are sold to adults for sex, or adults buy child pornography. All sexual exploitation of children is forbidden under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Many children who have sex with people for money have been trafficked and forced into the sex industry. But some children end up selling their bodies because of poverty – they don’t have any other way to feed themselves or their families. Children who are sexually exploited or abused are victims of a crime. No child can ever be said to have 'chosen' to be sexually exploited or is to blame for what happens to them.
In Southeast Asia alone, there are currently around 1 million children involved in the sex industry. Some are younger than 10 years old. However, sexual exploitation doesn’t only happen in poor countries. In the United States, it is estimated that between 200,000 and 300,000 children are exploited by the sex industry every year.
Children can be sexually exploited in different ways. Sex can be bought and sold through brothels or bars, or children may offer their bodies in exchange for food, clothing, or shelter. In each case the child is exploited by an adult who has more power than they do.
Children involved in the sex industry face terrible risks. Those children working in brothels may be drugged or beaten and all children involved in the sex industry face the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), especially HIV.
How UNICEF helps
Reducing poverty and getting children into school can help children to protect themselves, and give them more options in life. To protect children, we need to change attitudes, so the problems aren’t kept hidden. Adults and children need to understand that child sexual exploitation is wrong and illegal. UNICEF supports programmes aimed at rescuing and child victims of sexual exploitation, and helps them to get on with their lives.
UNICEF works with governments to encourage them to pass laws that punish exploiters and abusers, and not victims.