Unhappy childhood: the "age" of prostitution in France is rapidly declining
The French public is concerned about the "rejuvenation" of prostitution: very young girls and boys are increasingly entering the business. Social networks, instant messengers, encryption, cryptocurrency, and artificial intelligence (AI) have created an infrastructure for criminals in which they are almost impossible to detect. Why minors are becoming more and more deeply involved in this business and how government institutions are resisting this is in the "Izvestia" material.
Little little less
The French authorities have started sounding the alarm about the growth of child prostitution. The newspaper Le Parisien published alarming statistics: in the department of Oise, 76% of all reported cases of sexual exploitation are among minors. Moreover, the youngest victim was an 11-year-old boy.
"The age of most girls does not exceed 15-17 years. Some of them even become pimps and force younger girls into prostitution," Jean—Marie Cayo, prefect of Oise, told Le Parisien. He also noted that there are situations when teenagers have sexual relations in order to get some things, such as new lipstick or cigarettes.
Immigrants from the Balkan Peninsula, North and Central Africa, South America, China and Eastern Europe mainly enter this business. According to the Fondation Scelles organization, their "supply" is usually carried out by the same criminal groups that supply EU countries with contraband cigarettes and drugs. This is usually done by gangs from China, Romania, Latin America and Nigeria.
— Statistics confirm that in France the number of crimes committed by organized criminal groups is increasing. Prostitution is traditionally one of the means of making a profit and one of the "businesses" controlled by organized crime groups. Accordingly, if this illegal business is growing and making a profit, then new workers will definitely be recruited here, including through transnational criminal networks. If we look at the ratio of the number of crimes committed and the number of arrests, especially among illegal migrants, this dynamic becomes quite understandable. With insufficient counteraction from law enforcement agencies, this business continues to expand," explained international columnist Andrei Kuzmak.
A steady trend towards an increase in the number of teenagers involved in prostitution has been observed in the Fifth Republic over the past few years. The newspaper Le Figaro, citing the Interministerial Directorate for the Protection of Women from Violence and Combating Human Trafficking, cites data according to which the number of such cases has increased by 43% over the past four years. If in 2021 about 429 episodes of sexual exploitation of minors were identified, then in 2025 their number increased to 704.
There are currently more than 20,000 underage victims of sexual exploitation in France, 75% of whom are reported to be "immigrants" from organizations helping teenagers in difficult situations. For example, in November 2025, a video was posted online in which an 11-year-old girl, Iness, who was placed in the Marseille shelter of the social protection system for children (ASE), said that she was forced to engage in prostitution from the moment she arrived at the institution. "She" stated that she was being threatened, forcibly drugged and handed over to "clients" through underage pimps, and the educators said they "could not do anything."
The scale of this problem is evidenced not only by statistics: every year there are more and more high-profile criminal cases related to the sexual exploitation of minors. In the shelter of the same ASE, but already in Toulouse, teenagers were involved in prostitution not only in France, but also exported to Belgium and Switzerland. 14 adult members of the criminal organization, most of whom were under 20 years old, as well as eight teenagers, were put on trial. The members of the group were controlled by an adult leader who was already in prison.
Earlier, in May 2024, the Pontoise court sentenced five men between the ages of 24 and 36 who used the sexual services of a 12-year-old girl. The intermediaries were three young pimps who organized meetings at a local hotel in Val d'Oise. The criminals received real sentences, but one of the accused was acquitted due to lack of evidence. The scariest thing is that the men didn't even think about the victim's age.
Another demonstration trial took place in August 2026 in the same department of Uaz. A Senley court has sentenced a 21-year-old man in a pimping case against a 16-year-old girl he met through TikTok. According to Le Parisien, the exploitation took place in rented apartments.
Unfortunately, the gloomy trend is not unique to the Fifth Republic. In Germany and the Netherlands, where prostitution is legal but the sexual exploitation of children is officially prohibited, criminals still find loopholes in the laws. For example, they take advantage of the fact that in some European countries the age of consent is lower: 15 in the Czech Republic, 14 in Bulgaria.
How technology has simplified the spread of prostitution
The development of Internet technologies has greatly simplified the mechanisms of sexual exploitation of minors. In June 2026, the Prosecutor General's Office at the Paris Court of Appeal published a special report on how so-called pimping groups are formed among teenagers. The authors of the document note that social networks and instant messengers allow criminals to establish contact with minors, search for clients, distribute pornographic images, and also keep control over the victim in their hands.
Today, a significant part of the interaction between victims and customers is carried out through Snapchat and TikTok, social networks popular among European teenagers. The first acquaintance can take place remotely, after which communication is transferred to closed messengers with end-to-end encryption or even switches to the format of "offline meetings". Services are paid for in cryptocurrency, which makes it even more difficult to find sex offenders.
And France is not the only country where social media is used in the chain of sexual exploitation of minors. The problem has already acquired a pan-European scale and continues to evolve along with the digital environment. According to the latest statistics provided by the European Commission (EC), the number of reports of "online violence" against children has increased from about 1 million in 2010 to more than 23 million in 2025.
"These reports contained 61.8 million files, including 29.4 million images and 26.3 million videos. The data also shows an exponential increase in online harassment of children (grooming; making contact with a child for the purpose of sexual exploitation. — "Izvestia"), while the number of reports has increased more than 30 times over the past five years," the article on the EC website says.
Moreover, with the development of AI technologies, the production of such content is greatly simplified. Now criminals have the opportunity to create various deepfakes, conduct live broadcasts of sexual abuse of children, as well as use new developments for extortion, blackmail and other forms of crime.
In this regard, European legislators are trying to develop measures to combat prostitution among minors. In France, back in 2021, the government allocated €14 million to solve this problem. The authorities of the republic explained this by their desire to help the affected families, whose children were involved in criminal business.
However, according to experts, in fact, the governments of European countries only create the appearance of helping victims of sex trafficking. In particular, lawyer Michel Amas said that no one in France simply dares to talk about the problem. According to him, there is still no real control over the situation in the country.
"Everyone — judges, lawyers, social services — perfectly understand what is happening, but no one dares to say it out loud. We are talking about 20,000 children involved in prostitution, and there is no comprehensive policy to combat their sexual exploitation. I came across this myself in Auxerre: two pimps and two clients were detained at the crime scene, and a 13-year-old girl was nearby. However, in the end, the case did not receive the qualifications that, in my opinion, the situation required, and some of the defendants were released. And as long as the state continues to turn a blind eye to what is happening, these children remain without protection, and criminals are left without punishment," the expert concluded.
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