According to Article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 'child' refers to a person under 18 years of age.

However, it continues that this definition applies unless national laws recognize the age of majority earlier. In some countries majority is obtained on marriage, so child brides are not protected to age 18. Generalising protection to age 18 would provide greater protection to children from sexual exploitation.

The age of consent defines the legal time at which a person may consent voluntarily to sexual activity with another person. This varies from country to country - and even within a country, for example:

• The Penal Code of Spain sets the age of consent at 13 years.
• In the Maldives, there is an absence of legislation on age of sexual consent.
• In the case of some federal states, such as Australia, there is no uniformity among provinces and territories in relation to age of consent.

The legal definition of a child will also affect how offenders are dealt with by the courts. For example:

• Legal provisions in Canada outlaw touching children, or inciting another to touch a child under the age of 14 with sexual purpose. Pornography featuring those under 18 is illegal.
• In Egypt, punishment for sexual offenses is increased if the victim was younger than 21 years of age.

This is made more complex by the fact that many countries fail to register the births of children or to provide documents of such registration. In addition, fake identification cards can easily 'reclassify' a child as an adult.

A child can be a person of either gender. While this may seem obvious and hardly worth mentioning, many of the laws which countries have to protect children from sexual exploitation only address the issue in relation to girls' exploitation. The sexual abuse of boys is generally ignored or discounted. For example:

• In Thailand there has been resistance to amendments in the Penal Code that attempt to protect boys as well as girls from rape and/or commercial sexual exploitation. As the laws stand now only a girl or a woman can be raped or exploited.

In the legislation of other countries there is differential treatment between boys and girls. For example:

• In Jordan there is little public recognition of sexual exploitation, although there are laws regarding abduction which attempt to combat it. While this does not adequately protect children from sexual exploitation, a further concern is that the penalties differ in severity depending on the sex of the person abducted.

The demand for girls is more common and widespread; however, it has been known for some time that certain countries are targeted by child sex tourists who specifically seek out boys and young men. So-called 'beach boys' can be found in tourist destinations in Sri Lanka, Kenya, Gambia, and the Dominican Republic.

Boys seem to be a larger proportion of the total number of victims of child prostitution in Eastern Europe.

Some prostituted boys are transvestites who may work in the streets or as 'entertainers'. They can suffer further physical harm if the hormones they use to transform their bodies are of poor quality.