Tec, I have to say, this is kind of assuming a universal belief in the "mental health" and "innocence" of children... when in fact, in many developing countries (and even not so long ago, in the US), there is no such thing.
A little walk around the block of Patpong Road in Bangkok will tell you that. *VERY* pre-pubescent girls there, forced to do god knows what with lecherous pedophiles, just to send some money back home to their parents (if it ever gets there). Same thing goes on in a lot of places.
Or, even removed from a sexual context, previous to 1938 in the US (when Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, prohibiting child labor under age 16), look at the ages of kids working in factories... where their small hands were desired for working quickly with the machines, and injuries on the job, losing fingers and hands, getting coal in the lungs, were just part of "growing up." This kind of thing still goes on in plenty of countries... "According to recent global estimates by the International Labor Office, the number of working children aged 5 to 14 in developing countries is in the order of 250 million, of whom some 120 million work full time in various jobs often under hazardous conditions amid crude living conditions." (
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedst...abor/about.htm ).
It's only in the last 100 years that people (mostly Western countries) have begun to think of children as "innocent" and having a need to be "protected," whether from sexual exploitation or work exploitation. The rest of the world is still catching up, unfortunately... and as long as there's a demand, there will always be someone to supply that "commodity." Very unfortunate fact.