Associated Press. (1996, June 8). Young girls exploited, group says. Saturday Oklahoman and Times, p. 4.

 

OVERVIEW

Virgins command the highest price at clandestine auctions in Brazil. More than 300,000 Nepalese women have been shipped to India as sex slaves. Child prostitutes in in Kenya are getting younger every year.

Worldwide, sexual exploitation of women and children is increasing, particularly in mushrooming cities, which are producing more impoverished and homeless individuals. Yet, such exploitation is not solely a "Third World" problem. Brazil is home to approximately half a million child and teenage prostitutes, and is reportedly a popular travel destination for tourists (especially German and Dutch men) specifically seeking sex.

Annually, about 2 million prostitutes between ages 5 and 15 enter the sex market. According to Lisbet Palme, head of the Swedish committee for the U.N. Children’s Fund and organizer of a 1996 world congress on sexual exploitation of children, " ‘There are tens of millions of children in the sex market.’ " Pravita Rana, a central committee member of Nepal’s National Democratic Party, added that "many girls are forced into prostitution because of high unemployment—and poor parents sometimes sell their daughters."

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. How does reading this article affect you? Are you surprised? Is there anything new presented here?
2. What can you do about sexual exploitation in other countries?
3. What forms of sexual exploitation occur in the United States? What can be done?
4. Is this something that should be discussed with children or adolescents? Why or why not?

IMPLICATIONS

1. This article is extremely disturbing, even hard to comprehend.
2. The phenomenon seems overwhelming to attempt to address. Yet it must be attacked with vigor.
3. The underlying issues appear to be economic in nature. If people had better financial stability, they wouldn’t resort to such horrific practices.
4. Money for sex is not new. The heart of man must change.