Millions of children are being bought and sold for use as sex slaves, according to a new report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
The report called for a global campaign to eradicate the multi-billion pound sexual exploitation of youngsters.
"Zero tolerance means ending the trafficking of children, their sale and barter and imprisonment and torture," UNICEF Executive Director Ms Carol Bellamy said in a statement accompanying the report released yesterday.
"It means stamping out every horrible facet of the commercial sexual exploitation of children."
The report, Profiting from Abuse, which includes statements from women and children lured into the sex trade, was released in conjunction with the Second World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, which takes place December 17-20th in Yokohama, Japan.
UNICEF, the Japanese government, and voluntary organisations supporting the Convention on the Rights of the Child are co-sponsoring the conference.
Ms Bellamy said: "Millions of children throughout the world are being bought and sold like chattel and used as sex slaves.
"This is an utterly intolerable violation of children's rights."
Because traffickers operate clandestinely shuttling children through underground networks, and because some governments fail to recognize the problem, accurate statistics are hard to come by, the report said.
Nevertheless, it estimated that approximately one million children, mainly girls, enter the multi-billion pound commercial sex trade every year.
The report estimates that 400,000 children and women are subjected to commercial sexual exploitation in India, between 244,000 and 325,000 in the US, 200,000 in Thailand, and 175,000 in Eastern and Central Europe.
It estimates that 100,000 women and children are sexually exploited in the Philippines, Taiwan and Brazil, and 35,000 in west Africa.
The underlying causes of commercial sexual exploitation of children include poverty, discrimination against girls, war, organised crime, globalization, greed, traditions and beliefs, dysfunctional families, and the drug trade, UNICEF said.
AP