ABSTRACT
The sexual abuse and exploitation of children has occurred throughout human history. Child sexual abuse and exploitation remain inherently secretive phenomena and this causes significant difficulties in estimating their prevalence in society. The focus on commercial sexual exploitation in international law is perhaps understandable, as it has become a lucrative and global enterprise. The final decade of the 20th century led to the issue of child sexual abuse and exploitation beginning to feature at the international level. Having outlined the international action that is being undertaken to combat the sexual exploitation of children, it is necessary to consider the international legal instruments that exist to tackle this phenomenon. The majority of theories on sexual deviance suggest that sexual offenders specialise in types of victims and or offences. A difficulty with the global nature of child sexual exploitation is that it makes the identification of victims somewhat difficult.
