Child trafficking in Brazil

At least one fifth of Brazilian cities have under-age prostitution rings according to a report released last month by the Brazilian government. Many of those children sold into prostitution are in the north-east of the country and are used by foreign tourists and business people. The authorities have launched a national campaign to try to tackle the problem. Posters at airports now inform people that sexual exploitation is a crime. The government is also trying to get hotels and taxi drivers to adhere to a code of conduct which will break the link between them and the sexual exploitation of minors. However, with some estimates putting the number of child prostitutes in Brazil at over one million, it is questionable whether the Brazilian government has the resources to tackle this problem. An earlier plan to centralise social services for street children and increase the number of police working with minors only received $500,000, far short of the $2.6 million needed, according to the children’s advocacy group Curumins.
The root cause of the problem is, of course, poverty. The question is; how can the business community plan to invest in giving children a real chance in life, and at the same time break the link between business travellers and the sexual exploitation of minors who are being trafficked and forced by circumstance into prostitution.