Child sex risk in financial crisis: campaigners

Karen Percy, Bangkok

Last Updated: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:35:00 +1000

Child protection groups meeting in Thailand have warned the global economic crisis will make more children vulnerable to the sex trade.

The coalition, End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT), has launched a global awareness campaign to stop the $US28 billion a year industry.

Awareness programs are planned for villages right up to the highest levels of government.

In a report released Thursday in Bangkok, ECPAT warned that that increased poverty levels and rising desperation in developing and developed countries could put more children at risk of being trafficked.

It estimates that each year, 1.2 million children are forced into trafficking - much of it among neighbouring countries in Asia, Africa, and Central and South America.

As many as 80 percent of those young people are believed to end up in the sex industry

The report points out it is not just paedophiles who are contributing to the problem, but anyone who pays for sex could be unwittingly supporting child exploitation.