U.N. warns poverty pushing more kids into sex trade

The AJC reported on Friday that the U.N. warns poverty is pushing more kids into the sex trade

Ann Veneman, executive director of United Nations Children's Fund, said that "You are more likely to have demands on children to drop out of school, and if they are young girls, they are very likely to end up in prostitution or being sexually exploited," during times of worldwide financial struggle.

Although poverty is a huge contributing factor to the sex trade, especially in countries such as Brazil and the Amazon region state of Para; this devastating epidemic cannot be blamed solely on poverty. Brazil's president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that this crime is not possible without the demand of middle-class, educated men “who want to satiate their beastly appetites.”

A recent U.N. survey estimated that 150 million girls and 73 million boys under age 18 were forced to have sexual intercourse or experienced other forms of sexual violence in 2002 alone.