Prostitution, in Brazil, is practiced by a lot of children and adolescents. Studies present as its constitutive factors structural (unfavorable socio-economical condition) and symbolical (relations of power between females and familiar dynamics) matters. This is a pilot research with a theorical-methodologycal basis on the study of the production of meanings through discursive practices. Through the study of cases we have analyzed the speech of the interviews made with young people who “work” in the streets of Ribeirão Preto/SP. We may understand the prostitution of young people as a device able to bring meanings to their lives, representations of resistence and survival in a condition of loneliness and revolt.
Prostitution of young people; Social problems; Production of meanings