Ethics within the mass media. Human values . Extensive poverty and the absence of any future prospects in rural areas has often been described as the most important cause of people being forced into the sex trade. Throughout the world children and young people are tempted away from their home villages to the cities with promises and suggestions of a better life for themselves and for their families. We also know that it is parents from the most impoverished and marginalised families who are forced or tempted to sell their children.
Girls are more vulnerable than boys.
In particular, girls from families belonging to a countrys ethnic minority are at greatest risk. They may come from India, Thailand, Guatemala or Romania. Migrant workers are, according to studies, another over-represented supply source of children for sexual exploitation. Furthermore, it would not be possible without corrupt and ineffective national authorities who themselves earn money through the trade or by consciously ignoring it. Other reasons, of a macro-economic nature, mentioned by Muntarbhorn in his reports to the UN Commission are the structural adaptation programmes which the World Bank and International Currency Fund require poor countries to implement in order to promote economic growth and to reduce inflation.