The active participation of young people is key to the successful global effort to fight sexual exploitation of children, according to an adviser to an international conference on the issue scheduled next year in Yokohama.

"Authorities alone cannot solve the problem by toughening enforcement. We also need good community vigilance," Vitit Muntarbhorn, a professor of law at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, said in an interview in Tokyo.

Vitit, who served as a special U.N. reporter on the sale of children between 1990 and 1994 and has helped various nongovernmental organizations on the issue, is here to prepare for the Second World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, slated for December 2001, for which he is acting as an adviser.