 Anthropologist Heather Montgomery writes that society has a largely negative perception of prostitution of children , in part because the children are often viewed as having been abandoned or sold by their parents and families . The International Labour Organization includes the prostitution of children in its list of the " worst forms of child labour " . At the 1996 World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children it was called " a crime against humanity " , " torture " , and " slavery " . Virginia Kendall , a district judge and expert on child exploitation and human trafficking , and T. Markus Funk , an attorney and law professor , write that the subject is an emotional one and that there are various perspectives about its prevention : 
