In many places children involved in the sex trade are treated as
criminals and punished for committing a crime. While there is debate
about the right of adults to be involved in sex work, or the
possibility of this involvement being empowering and perhaps even
feminist, it is pretty clear that children should not be trading their
bodies for money or a place to live. Children are not as capable of
making these kinds of decisions, and a majority of children get
involved in the sex trade through the exploitation and manipulation of
pimps, or ‘boyfriends’ much older than them. Street kids are offered
a place to stay in some older guy’s house, and later told they have to
pay him back for room and board, with sex. Teens get hooked on drugs by their ‘boyfriends’ and then are forced to pay their debts with
their bodies. These kids need to be helped, not persecuted. Treating
children involved in the sex trade as criminals is nothing more than
glorified victim blaming. These people deserve a better life. Child
sexual exploitation is a reality happening all over Canada and the US
that needs to be stopped. To learn more, visit
gems-girls.org or
watch the film Very Young Girls.
Broken homes, these kids have no where else to go. Love on the streets
comes at a price. Young bodies like dollar bills. Don’t tell me she
had a choice.