Children Aren’t “Sex Workers”: How a UN Body Betrayed Its Own Mandate

In February 2026, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women — the body known as CEDAW — published what should have been a routine review of women’s rights conditions in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.   What it published instead was a document that human rights advocates, child protection experts, and even a fellow UN official have all condemned as a fundamental betrayal of the children it was created to protect.   Buried in the report’s recommendations was a phrase that shocked advocates: “minor sex workers.”   Those three words aren’t a technicality [...]