The Declaration and Action for Agenda of the World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (1996) provided this definition of the practice in general:

"The commercial sexual exploitation of children is a fundamental violation of children's rights. It comprises sexual abuse by the adult and remuneration in cash or kind to the child or a third person or persons. The child is treated as a sexual object and as a commercial object. The commercial sexual exploitation of children constitutes a form of coercion and violence against children, and amounts to forced labour and a contemporary form of slavery."

Commercial sexual exploitation of children consists of practices that are demeaning, degrading and many times life-threatening to children.

There are three primary and interrelated forms of commercial sexual exploitation of children: prostitution, pornography, and trafficking for sexual purposes. Other forms of sexual exploitation of children include child sex tourism and early marriages.

Government representatives from 159 countries, together with non governmental organisations, Unicef and other UN agencies have committed themselves to a global partnership against the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The Agenda for Action calls for improved coordination and cooperation, prevention measures, increased protection, rehabilitation efforts and youth participation.

The Declaration and Agenda for Action are not legally binding documents. There are several international conventions, however, that contain articles offering protection to children from commercial sexual exploitation. States which ratify these conventions are legally bound to comply with their provisions. The most widely ratified convention, and perhaps the best known, is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

Article 34 of this convention calls for State Parties to take all appropriate measures to prevent the inducement or coercion of a child to engage in unlawful sexual activity, as well as to prevent the exploitative use of children in prostitution, pornography or other unlawful sexual activities. Article 35 of the CRC calls for State Parties to take all appropriate measures to prevent the abduction, sale of or traffic in children for any purpose or in any form.

An Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that specifically addresses the commercial sexual exploitation of children was adopted in 2000, as a supplementary document to the CRC. It entered into force on January 18, 2002.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) includes commercial sexual exploitation of children as one of the worst forms of child labour under the ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention 182. The Convention applies to all persons under the age of 18 and requires ratifying States to "design and implement programmes of action" to eliminate the worst forms of child labour as a priority and "establish or designate appropriate mechanisms" for monitoring implementation of the Convention, in consultation with employers' and workers' organisations.

Another strategy is to reconceptualise child sexual exploitation as 'degrading treatment' and therefore a violation of Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, or Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, or Article 5 of the American Convention on Human Rights.

Other conventions that relate to the sexual exploitation of children include the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation or the Prostitution of Others; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; and the International Convention against Organised Crime and its supplementary Protocols.