YOKOHAMA, Japan, Dec 18 (AFP) - The sexual exploitation of children is a global problem that goes well beyond the problem of sex tourism, according to the director-general of the United Nations Children's Fund.

"Sexual exploitation is far more than sex tourism," Carol Bellamy said in an interview with AFP between working sessions of the Second World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children here.

"Sex tourism is the person from a western country coming to Cambodia (for sex), but sexual exploitation can be kids from Nigeria taken to Italy for prostitution; it can be trafficking of kids from Morrocco to be domestic helps but largely held as sexual slaves; it can be in conflict countries where boys are taken to be soldiers and girls are taken to provide sex."

The four-day congress is a follow-up to the first such conference against sexual exploitation of children, held in Stockholm, Sweden in 1996, and has attracted over 3,300 delegates from governments, international bodies and non-governmental organisations.

Although the problem of AIDS in relation to sexual exploitation was already an issue at the Stockholm conference, the implications of ignorance about AIDS in relation to sexual exploitation of children had now assumed a greater dimension, Bellamy said.

There is "this terrible myth throughout the world that if a man has AIDS and that if he has sex with a virgin he will be cured. So we see an increasing amount of violence on young girls by older men, and secondly the weakening of society because AIDS/HIV create more vulnerability among young people these days by the loss of one or more of their parents," to the conditions.

The importance of the congress did not lie in any declaration it came out with, but in the exchange of experiences and information among delegates that can make a practical difference to the fight against sexual exploitation when they return to their respective countries, Bellamy said.

"As far as I am concerned, the success of this conference comes less through the plenary statements and more through the sharing of experience in the workshops, and I would consider it a success if the delegates generally go back home with one or two things that they come to find might be useful in their country."

A case in point was the increased awareness of the mechanics of child trafficking, Bellamy said.

"We see through workshops we (UNICEF) sponsored increasing information showing the routes of trafficking that is going on -- countries that are originators, countries that are where the children are trafficked to, and countries where they are being trafficked through," she said.

The congress was jointly organised by UNICEF, the Japanese government, End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (ECPAT) International, -- a network working for the elimination of child prostitution, child pornography and trafficking of children for sexual purposes -- and the NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

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