Research and services focused on sexually exploited children and adolescents often target girls and leave out boys. However, research shows that boys often report similar rates of sexual exploitation as girls (10, 19, 27). This suggests that boys may experience more sexual exploitation than is commonly realized, while also facing greater barriers to what few services may exist for them. To better understand the sexual exploitation of boys, we did a broad literature search to identify and evaluate research on this topic. We looked at articles that were on topic, in English, written between 1990-2015, and published in academic journals.
