Juvenile prostitution in Brazil: An international call to action on female sex trafficking

Dr Paulo Serafini is the Medical Director of Huntington Medicina Reprodutiva and a Professor of Gynecology at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. He graduated from and completed his obstetrics and gynecology residency at the University of Rio Grande do Sul, and completed a second residency in obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive health at the University of Maryland, USA. Dr Serafini pursued his subspecialty training in infertility and reproductive endocrinology at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Southern California, USA. In 1988, he co-founded the Huntington Reproductive Medicine center in Pasadena, USA. Dr Serafini is the Director of Reproductive Medicine at the Clinical Hospital of the Medical School Foundation at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. His research is focused primarily on in vitro fertilization, ovulation induction, corpus luteum function, and endometriosis. Dr Serafini is an Associate Editor on the Editorial Board of the IJGO. Recent decades have seen extensive socioeconomic and infrastructure development in Brazil. This growth has been accompanied by a frightening increase in juvenile prostitution, which requires an international collaborative effort to improve the health care of vulnerable girls in the country [1]. The Brazilian Center for Infancy and Adolescence (CBIA) estimates that more than 500 000 children enter into prostitution to obtain