Child prostitution refers to children and adolescents receiving money or other items of value in exchange for engaging in sexual acts or allowing sexual acts to be performed on them. Child prostitution is a form of sexual abuse. According to Child Maltreatment, published in 2008, sexual abuse is defined as a type of maltreatment that refers to the involvement of the child in sexual activity to provide sexual benefit or financial benefit to the perpetrator, including contacts for sexual purposes, molestation, statutory rape, (child) prostitution, (child) pornography, exposure, incest or other sexually exploitative activities.
Both girls and boys may be prostituted. Some children have had hundreds of sex partners. They usually continue a life of prostitution into adulthood.
Federal laws in the United States, as well as laws in every state, ban child prostitution. In the United States, any person who knowingly transports any child under the age of 18 years in interstate or foreign commerce or in any commonwealth, territory or possession of the United States, with the intent that the individual engage in prostitution or in any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, or attempts to do so, may be fined or imprisoned. In some states, such as Maine and Wisconsin, prostituting one's child is specific grounds for the termination of parental rights. (In other states, parental rights may be terminated for sexual abuse, abandonment and other crimes; thus, in effect, it is likely that parents in every state could lose their parental rights for prostituting their children.)
Internationally, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibits child prostitution. (The United States is not yet a signatory to this UN Convention.) Organizations such as End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking
