Seeking reliable evidence - claim that closing sweatshops leads to child prostitution

I've been looking for reliable evidence of a claim I've heard a few times. The claim is that the closing of sweatshops (by anti-globalization activists) has resulted in many of the child workers becoming prostitutes. The idea is frequently proffered as an example of do-gooder foolishness ignoring basic economics and screwing people over.

However, despite searching for a while, I can't find anything to indicate that this actually happened.

Some guy at the Library of Economics and Liberty mentions it here:

In one famous 1993 case U.S. senator Tom Harkin proposed banning imports from countries that employed children in sweatshops. In response a factory in Bangladesh laid off 50,000 children. What was their next best alternative? According to the British charity Oxfam a large number of them became prostitutes.

But in the article, Paul Krugman mentions the Oxfam study without citation:

In 1993, child workers in Bangladesh were found to be producing clothing for Wal-Mart, and Senator Tom Harkin proposed legislation banning imports from countries employing underage workers. The direct result was that Bangladeshi textile factories stopped employing children. But did the children go back to school? Did they return to happy homes? Not according to Oxfam, which found that the displaced child workers ended up in even worse jobs, or on the streets -- and that a significant number were forced into prostitution.

I looked at some Oxfam stuff, but couldn't find the study.

A similar claim is made in The Race to the Top: The Real Story of Globalization by Tomas Larsson (go here and use the search tool for the word 'prostitution'), but doesn't mention the Oxfam study:

Keith E. Maskus, an economist at the University of Colorado, has studied the issue... He concludes that... "The celebrated French ban of soccer balls sewn in Pakistan for the World Cup in 1998 resulted in significant dislocation of children from employment. Those who tracked them found that a large proportion ended up begging and/or in prostitution,"

I looked for a paper or something by Maskus but came up empty.

I was taught this fact at a Poli Sci class in college, but I'm starting to think it's more likely to be an information cascade. Can anyone do a better job than me?

Thanks in advance.

However, despite searching for a while, I can't find anything to indicate that this actually happened.

Some guy at the Library of Economics and Liberty mentions it here:

In one famous 1993 case U.S. senator Tom Harkin proposed banning imports from countries that employed children in sweatshops. In response a factory in Bangladesh laid off 50,000 children. What was their next best alternative? According to the British charity Oxfam a large number of them became prostitutes.

But in the article, Paul Krugman mentions the Oxfam study without citation:

In 1993, child workers in Bangladesh were found to be producing clothing for Wal-Mart, and Senator Tom Harkin proposed legislation banning imports from countries employing underage workers. The direct result was that Bangladeshi textile factories stopped employing children. But did the children go back to school? Did they return to happy homes? Not according to Oxfam, which found that the displaced child workers ended up in even worse jobs, or on the streets -- and that a significant number were forced into prostitution.

I looked at some Oxfam stuff, but couldn't find the study.

A similar claim is made in The Race to the Top: The Real Story of Globalization by Tomas Larsson (go here and use the search tool for the word 'prostitution'), but doesn't mention the Oxfam study:

Keith E. Maskus, an economist at the University of Colorado, has studied the issue... He concludes that... "The celebrated French ban of soccer balls sewn in Pakistan for the World Cup in 1998 resulted in significant dislocation of children from employment. Those who tracked them found that a large proportion ended up begging and/or in prostitution,"

I looked for a paper or something by Maskus but came up empty.

I was taught this fact at a Poli Sci class in college, but I'm starting to think it's more likely to be an information cascade. Can anyone do a better job than me?

Thanks in advance.

It seems obvious that taking options away from people can't improve their situation. But that is not necessarily true. Saying that silently assumes that their environment remains exactly the same and does not update on the information that the option is no longer available.

As a simple model, imagine that there are three possible choices: a crappy job, a good job, and no job. With no job, the child dies from starvation, but the employer makes no money. With crappy job, the child barely survives, and the employer makes a lot of money. With good job, the child is happy, and the employer makes smaller profit.

In this situation, the employer can improve their outcome by precommiting to not use the "good job" option. That is actually a very simple thing to do for an employer, because job seekers typically only apply for the offered positions, and don't go to job interviews suggesting that a new position should be created specifically for them (because employing them in the new position would be better for the company than not employing them at all). At this moment, the best remaining choice for the child is to take the crappy job. -- But if the law makes crappy jobs illegal, the best remaining move for the employer is to offer a good job. So, having less options in this specific case could improve the situation for the child.

The problem is what happens when some crappy jobs are removed from the market, but other crappy jobs remain. Will children move to better jobs, or just to those other crappy jobs?

I would guess that it depends on how easily the employers can move to other forms of business. It could be relatively easy for Joe the factory owner to become Joe the pimp. But even for him there could be negative consequences, e.g. losing a lot of status. But I doubt that companies like Walmart, Tesco, Nike, Adidas, Disney, Starbucks etc. could easily switch to become international prostitution networks. On the other hand, these big companies have an option to just move to another country where the law is less strict; which would be more expensive for Joe the local small factory owner.

Conclusion: A simplistic analysis is insufficient, we need real data. It is also quite possible that the outcome will be mixed; that by closing sweatshops x children will move to better jobs, y children will move to child prostitution, and z children will starve to death.