The entire system, as described is horribly broken. Underage girls working as prostitutes should be treated as victims, not criminals. Statutory rape should be an available charge in that situation, but there needs to be a state of mind with respect to the defendant's knowledge of the victim's age. Criminal negligence (a reasonable person in the defendant's situation would have known) seems appropriate.<p>With strict liability, even examining a seemingly authentic government ID card or passport wouldn't serve as a defense. That's wrong.<p>Edit: this is an issue of policy and mechanism. The policy of trying to punish those who don't care that they're abusing very young or enslaved girls is a good one. The mechanism of strict liability is extremely flawed, and the precedent of having <i>any</i> strict liability laws on the book opens the door for less clearly black and white policies to be applied using that mechanism.