But it has not. Indeed, under the cover of shocked and horrified , newspaper reports and television documentaries do little but sensationalize the problem or even effectively advertise the sexual services of child prostitutes by revealing where they are to be found. If this were the case it should be possible to mount international policing campaigns against child prostitution. But the real scenario is not just sordid - but petty too. There is no massive, evil, profit-making organization outside society to be combatted.
Child prostitutes sell themselves cheaply, casually.
In the West they do it to buy drugs, to pay to get into discotheques or purchase some of the fashionable clothes aggressive marketing insists they must have. Street children in the Third World have more basic needs. Without family or state support they sell themselves for a meal or to purchase solvents to sniff and forget their hunger, confusion and abandonment. It is true that pimps and brothel owners lie in wait for young runaways and migrants from rural areas at the bus and railway stations of big cities like New York or Bangkok. But this is not big business .