Child Prostitution

I got a lot of interesting information on child prostitution in the United States that I was not aware of. According to the U.S department of Justice Approximately 55% of street girls engage in formal prostitution. Estes Report, Executive Summary at 7. Of the girls engaged in formal prostitution, about 75% worked for a pimp.What I thought was so unbelievable was that if the girls are exchanging sex for money even if it is given to the pimp (which in most cases it is) they are still criminals. Often times these children are forced into the sex industry and have no way out. What gets me so angry are the personal stories of individual girls that i have read. "Maria is . . . prostituted by her aunt. Maria is obliged to sell her body exclusively to foreign tourists in Costa Rica, she only works mornings as she has to attend school in the afternoon. Maria is in fifth grade." When I read this I was shocked, what kind of person would force their own family memeber into a life of prostitution and she is only in fifth grade! She is setting her up for a life of mistreatment and possibly abuse.I am outraged with society, this should be stopped because it is not only an issue of prostitution but it is a human rights problem and a problem with society if it is tolerated. I learned that In 1998, the International Labour Organization reported its calculations that 2-14% of the gross domestic product of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Phillipines, and Thailand derives from sex tourism.This is a big business in these areas and seems to be more prevalent outside of the United States. Child sex tourists are defined as individuals that travel to foreign countries to engage in sexual activity with children. The non-profit organization End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, and the Trafficking of Children (ECPAT) estimates that more than one million children worldwide are drawn into the sex trade each year. When I heard one million children a year I was completely shocked, not only at the number but why no one was talking about it. I had never heard of child sex tourism before I started researching on this project.

If no money is involved, the youngster is considered a victim. But if the man pays for the sex — even if the money is going to the pimp, which is so often the case — the child is considered a prostitute and thus subject in many venues to arrest and incarceration.“We often see the girls arrested and the pimps and the johns go free,” said Carol Smolenski, the head of Ecpat-USA, a group that fights the sexual exploitation of children. “One of the big problems is that there is this whole set of child sex exploiters who are not targeted as exceptionally bad guys.”(campgirlnotes.com) I think it is crazy to think that these children who are forced into the sex industry are the ones getting in trouble instead of the pimps that force them to do this. This is the problem and maybe why nothing is getting done, we need to catch the right people and until we do that, child prostitution will continue all over the world.