Rampant child prostitution sweeps Brazil

The problems of child prostitution and sexual exploitation in Brazil are worse off than in many other countries. And the deadly combination of poverty, crime and tourism is to blame, a UN special envoy was quoted as saying.

Juan Miguel Petit, a United Nations special rapporteur on children sale, child prostitution and infant pornography, paid a recent visit to Brazil invited by the government. His report on the current situation is expected to be ready at the UN headquarters as soon as April next year.

Regardless of not counting on reliable figures, Mr. Petit said NGO representatives he sat down with during his two-day visit told him about an increasingly larger number of cases.

According to the UN special envoy, there are as many as 240 national and international routes frequently used by sex smugglers in Brazil and whereby they move prostitutes from their places of origin all the way to the big cities.

Brazilian NGOs estimate the number of prostituted children in the South American nation sways somewhere between 100,000 and half a million minors. Brazil’s population is 175 million inhabitants.

“Brazil is a walk in the sun as far as access for tourists is concerned. The young population is immense, law enforcement authorities never patrol slums and poor neighborhoods, and the huge surface of the country makes control even harder,” Mr. Petit indicated. “Moreover, drug smuggling is on the rise.”

“All this paints a much blurrier picture of Brazil and turns the situation twice as much explosive. We know (the situation) is bad, that it’s a worse case scenario we’re talking about and that we have a long way to go in that respect,” he concluded.

The UN special envoy called on social groups to bend over backwards in combating the problem, especially now that an ever-growing number of youths are getting trapped in a spiraling crime wave.