ABSTRACT
Child prostitution is, however, rarely dealt with as a separate offense, but instead tends to be viewed as a “public nuisance”. Child prostitutes can be found at the lowest end of the “market”, where prices are lowest, conditions are worst, and “productivity” is highest. In contrast to Eastern Europe, Latin America has for several decades been confronted with an ever increasing scale of child prostitution and child trafficking. The majority of child prostitutes in the cities, ports or mining regions were not born there, but rather immigrated there, either with their families in search of work, or alone, or they were brought there by child traffickers. Cuba alone provides laws against “the violation of the normal development of the child and adolescent”, and is thus the only country to consider the violation of the victim and not of the abstract “public sense of shame” a punishable offense.
