This is the heading of an article in The London Times yesterday 28.2.06.  It is a shocking article on the eve of President Bush's visit and a part of India that he will not see.  300,000 children involed in commercial sex earning 7p (5 rupees) a time. Girls are often sold into prostitution by their parents for about £6.
On a trip to Calcutta recently I met a twelve year old girl who had followed her mother into prostitution ~ she had totally dead eyes ~ it was heart breaking to look into her eyes. I suppose the only way to survive is to shut down your emotions. At twelve how else do you cope with the pain, the abuse, the shame, the utter hopelessness, the poverty and the almost certain daily rapes and certainty of being HIV+ in the near future.
I have a twelve year old daughter who thinks about pop music and chocolate, the odd french vocab test, fashions and who her friends are.
What makes my daughter worthy of protection, love, ambition, hope, a future, a family one day, an education, freedom, choice, freedom from fear on a daily basis etc to say nothing of food, clothes and a safe bed at night?
The article goes on to say: Education is the key here.  If we can get young kids into schools there is less chance of them falling into the hands of traffickers and pimps".
Grandma's opened a school in Tenali in Andhra Pradesh in South India for tribal children who otherwise would have no access to primary education.