Papua New Guinea's Social Welfare and Development Minister, Lady Carol Kidu, says the laws used to charge young girls with prostitution should be repealed.
Lady Carol said charging children with living off the earnings of prostitution made a mockery of Child Sex Protection Legislation passed only two years ago.
She said PNG had signed up to the Convention of the Rights of the Child, which anyone below 18 as a child.
Lady Carol has told the National newspaper that under PNG's Child Sex Protection legislation it should be the clients or the owner of the brothels who are charged, not the girl or boy being exploited.
She said the fact that a child offered the service was not an excuse, it was up to the adult to say no.
