Bangkok hosts anti-paedophile meeting

Government officials and child welfare experts are meeting in the Thai capital Bangkok to prepare for a World Congress against the commercial sexual exploitation of children, due to be held in Japan in December.

The United Nations says in Asia the victims' average age is 13, but that in some cases children as young as four are being sexually exploited for money.

A BBC correspondent in Bangkok says advances made by countries such as Thailand, Japan and Vietnam in devising legislation against paedophiles have tended to push to push the trade to poorer, less developed countries.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service