I recently watched a documentary in which there were many instances of child prostitution in the “red light” district areas of undeveloped countries, especially in Asia. There were girls as young as 13 or 14 who were working the streets and business seemed to be plentiful and AIDS a huge problem. My question is, does the law permit such actions in those countries? I find it hard to believe that the government would permit illicit sex for sale customs for minors. How do they get away with it? If it is legal for young children to engage in prostitution there, shouldn’t there be some sort of international standard law which prohibits it? Can the UN do anything about this? The program also talked about how these girls were being sold as sex slaves and being taken advantage of by toursists.
I lived in Thailand for a while. To the best of my knowledge 1) Prostitution is at least nominally illegal, although there’s a lot of it around in various guises and 2) Sex with children is against the law and will get your ass thrown in some of the worst conditions you’ve ever experienced. Legal age is either 18 or 19, depending on who you talk to. (Yes, I know it’s a paradox that there is a legal age for something which is illegal) Many Thai women look a lot younger than their real age, and there are some girls out there with fake IDs (manufactured or belong to another family member). I don’t doubt that it happens sometimes, but whatever person does this is playing with serious fire. I’ve read one account where the person was busted and bribed their way out of it, for about $5,000. That’s definitely a possibility, as bribes are fairly prevalent there, but I never saw a guy out with a really young girl, so if/when it happens it’s fairly clandestine.
There is a reason they call it the third world. They don’t have the resources to stamp out prostitution, poverty, disease, etc. Did you notice we have prostitution, adult and child, in the good old USA, the wealthiest nation on earth?
I don’t mean to get too preachy and get this thrown to GD but when people are in poverty they do anything to get by. Survival becomes a short term matter. Building a better life for one’s self in the future doesn’t mean jack squat if you starve to death this week. Bottom line is they get away with it because there is motivation to do so and not enough people who are paid to make them stop.