Meeting Focuses on Child Sex Industry

In the first international conference of its kind, officials and child advocates from around the world plotted strategies to abolish the multibillion-dollar child sex industry. Delegates from 130 countries meeting in Stockholm drafted a plan to attack those who force children into prostitution or profit from their abuse. This month’s excavation of the bodies of girls allegedly killed by a child pornography ring in Belgium added urgency to the effort. UNICEF estimates that 1 million children a year are forced into child prostitution, sold for sexual purposes, or used in producing pornography. Many are handed over by their own families, driven to extremes by poverty.