Quote:
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comprehensive research ... is lacking ... estimated ... at risk of becoming victims of commercial sexual exploitation.
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Key phrase there (bolded by me) ... quite different than "child prostitutes" being actively engaged in such. Also the use of the word "youth" which often means anyone under 25 in these sorts of exercises.
Not saying there isn't a real problem -- just noting a LOT of arm-waving. Virtually all your links involve extensive arm-waving as well though some actually admit the lack of data. Many fail to even define what they mean by "children". Is a 19 year old a child? A 23yr old? I've seen 25 year olds labeled as "children" in some stats for the purposes of inflating numbers.
Follow the numbers quoted in all the links to their source and watch the substance of the numbers vanish in a haze of arm-waving and sometimes sourceless assertions. From the UN link:
It would really help if the emotional strings arm-waving were put aside and the specific real problems hit with a spotlight. My "bullshit" detector ("think of the children!") just says a lot of grants and budgets depend on this appearing to affect a larger population than it actually does (in the US). The international sex trafficking problem (involving people both underage and adult), OTOH, has real meat to the statistics involving actual raids, captures, and arrests