For Children Who Flee or Are Kicked out of their Homes, Sex Is Often the Cost of Survival

NY Times: For Runaways, Sex Buys Survival, by Ian Urbina:

Running in the Shadows

. . . Most of the estimated 1.6 million children who run away each year return home within a week. But for those who do not, the desperate struggle to survive often means selling their bodies.

Nearly a third of the children who flee or are kicked out of their homes each year engage in sex for food, drugs or a place to stay, according to a variety of studies published in academic and public health journals. But this kind of dangerous barter system can quickly escalate into more formalized prostitution, when money changes hands. . . .