First, the good things about this book. The subject is of real importance, and if nothing has been written about it before, then the authors and editors deserve plaudits for focusing on it. It is not just that children and young people are involved in prostitution - that has been going on for centuries - but that the situation has changed, with world-wide travel, the widespread use of drugs and the risk of HIV/AIDS. All of these factors have put children at risk to an extent unheard of before. Secondly, the contributions for the book come from quite a range of countries, and they contain a wealth of detailed information about the extent of child prostitution and the measures being taken to deal with it. For anyone concerned about this subject, the book offers a lot of data which they can quote or learn from.

It has to be said, however, that the book is a disappointment, and that the definitive work on this subject remains to be written. One of the problems faced by the authors is that real information on the subject is limited in many countries. People do not like to admit that child prostitution exists, (particularly in relation to boys in some parts of the world), and very little research has been done. It is a covert activity and no-one involved wants to admit to it, whether they are pimps, punters or the children themselves. In consequence, many of the chapters use a lot of space discussing prostitution in general, and then tag on whatever data there are about children.

The format, of putting together contributions from a number of countries, will have made life easier for the editors, but it meant that particular issues were not followed up in depth. The harder way of writing such a book would have been to write chapters on specific subjects, such as the clientele of young prostitutes or the impact of the work on their health, and to draw together the experience from the various countries. As it is, each chapter author has done their own thing and there does not appear to have been a common format. The result is that the first half of the chapter on the Republic of Ireland, for example, explains why there are no real data and the second half is a wish list about what should happen, while a large chunk of the chapter on Scotland is devoted to describing its "distinct" legal system, again offering relatively little hard information. ("Distinct" from what? Surely the Scots can speak about their systems without needing to contrast them with England's?)

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The two best chapters are that on Russia, which is well-written, well-based in hard information, insightful in its analysis and persuasive in reflecting the views of those involved, and that on the Netherlands, which also offers perspectives from the children's angle. The chapter on Italy is peppered with punctuation and other mistakes, and the English is not up to Russell House standards. For that matter, most other chapters have odd spelling mistakes as well, but in the Italian chapter there are places where the sense is not clear, which is not acceptable. It was also unfortunate that the third line of the Preface stated that the book was being published "at the beginning of the second millennium." (Has it really taken Russell House a thousand years to print it?) Sloppy. In the way it is written, Chapter 2, on the effect of economics and recent European politics, is utterly unrelated to the subject. Of course, the migration of children and their involvement in prostitution are affected by economics and politics, but the chapter makes virtually no links and could have been lifted from an introductory textbook on modern Europe for sixth-formers. The final chapter, headed Conclusions, is half made up of summaries of the previous chapters, which is a waste of space, and the Appendix of photographs adds nothing to the text. Only in the Russian and Dutch chapters and in the last couple of pages of the Conclusions is there any discussion of the real issues. For example, in the Conclusions a key point is made that from the point of view of most clients, there is no real distinction between girls and women as prostitutes. Only a few clients are paedophiles in the sense that they seek out really young children. If this is true, the whole question of child prostitutes has to be looked at in terms of the prostitutes' views of their predicaments, rather than their clients'. Yet this issue is not analysed in any further detail, though it figures strongly in the emotive penultimate paragraph which suggests that the children's clients are paedophiles.

Again, in one or two chapters, there are references to the children or their families choosing that a child goes into prostitution as an economic decision, taking account of the child's or the family's economic circumstances and the child's ability to earn and help to support the family. Focusing on the decision to become involved in prostitution ducks the question as to whether there were any better options for a family or a child in desperate circumstances. Other jobs open to the child might well have been equally exploitative or more dangerous. If so, the problem is the poverty and the lack of educational and work opportunities for children rather than the prostitution. The tone through much of the book does not respect the right of people in those situations to make their own decisions, but implicitly condemns this particular type of decision.

We need a book which helps us understand the predicaments in which people find themselves, taking account of the economies of their countries, their cultures and their religions, and helps us to understand why they felt that the best thing they could do was to become prostitutes or involve their loved ones in prostitution. We also need to understand why many more millions of clients wish to turn to prostitutes in an era when sex appears to have become more free than ever before. We need then to understand what is particularly significant about the impact on children, as against adults, being involved in this type of work, and what the involvement of children means to the clients. There is a passing reference in one chapter to the impact of sexual activity at an early age on the development of children, but the case is not clearly made out as to why this is prostitution is more damaging for children than turning to crime or rag-picking on rubbish dumps.

Only when we understand issues such as these will plans of action have a real impact. Of course we need to act before we reach the point where we understand everything, but if this book is state of the art, we have a long way to go. Its publication is to be welcomed if this is all that is known, but we look forward to the next edition or the next book to give us a fuller insight.

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