Challenging the child/adult distinction in theory and practice on prostitution

Abstract

This article argues that contemporary concern about ending child prostitution is misdirected in its strategy. Some theorists and activists, even the ILO, are seeking to create a distinction between adult and child prostitution as if child prostitution could be ended whilst adult prostitution remains intact. The motivation for the distinction relies upon trends in the 1990s to characterize men's prostitution abuse of adult women as constituting legitimate work, choice and agency for the women themselves, and to construct a profitable prostitution industry which can create profits for governments and sex industrialists. I will argue that child and adult prostitution are inextricably interlinke..