Making pimps and sex buyers visible: Recognising the commercial nexus in ‘child sexual exploitation’

This article suggests that the policy re-framing of the prostitution of children as a separate phenomenon from the prostitution of adults is obscuring the commercial nexus between men who buy sex with children and the third party profiteers (pimps) who frequently supply the children they buy. It suggests that this is making both groups of perpetrators invisible. It argues that coercion is endemic to the sex trade and explores the gendered strategies of coercive control used by pimps to entrap both children and women. The article suggests that the wider sex trade creates a ‘conducive context’ for the sexual commodification of children, and that the commercial sexual exploitation of children and adults can only be effectively challenged by policy and law aimed at reducing demand for all forms of prostitution. It focusses on law and policy in England and Wales, which differs from the rest of the UK