A group of young people involved in the sex trade are meeting in Canada for a conference to fight the sexual exploitation of children.

More than 60 delegates, most in their teens and from a dozen countries in North and South America, are spending a week in the western city of Victoria discussing ways to help children leave the sex industry and stop adults buying sex with children.

The organiser, Cherry Kingsley, a Canadian, says there need to be more ways out of the sex trade for children and more public understanding of the problems. Her own story is one of forced involvement in the sex trade as a young girl but now, in her twenties, she is an advocate for prostitutes and sexually abused children.

The conference was born from the frustration she felt at the ineffectiveness of a Unicef sponsored world conference on a similar topic two years ago in Sweden. There, she was one of only a handful of young people amongst 1,300 delegates.

The young people attending the Canada conference feel that the meeting in Sweden achieved very little and now it is their turn to try. They are spending the first days of the summit in private, sharing experiences and ideas, and developing a plan for action to be made public later in the week.

Despite the small size of the conference and the fact that it has little support from international governments, the delegates are hopeful that this time they will see concrete results for children in the sex trade.
 

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