You seem to have some very set — and very wrong ideas about child prostitution. It is real, and it has existed for a long time. When I left the Military, I drove a cab and tended bar while I earned another degree. In both occupations I had a lot of contact with prostitutes in their early teens — technically as you state, still children. At first I attempted to involve Police and Child Protective Services, but to little avail. If they were picked up and returned to parents, they would be back within weeks.

Most of them were supporting a drug habit. Regardless as to whether they introduced themselves or were introduced by another party to drugs, it was the primary reason for them prostituting themselves. There is a huge drug culture, the guys involved resort to burglary/robbery, and sometime prostitution, invariably the girls turned to “the game” as they term prostitution. Drugs are expensive — how do YOU think they manage to fund their habits?

Child prostitution is real, it not an imaginary “victim” issue. Here, if a guy is caught with a minor, he is arrested and charged for committing a paedophilic act, the sexual assault of a minor. The problem is proving the client knew the girl’s real age. They all claim to be over the age of consent. Sometimes they obviously aren’t and then the arrest sticks. In those states where prostitution is either legalised, or decriminalised, child prostitution is becoming rarer. Legal brothels and hookers make the child prostitutes stand out.