Movie star couple Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are launching a new campaign Monday against child sex slavery.
A host of other stars, including Justin Timberlake and Sean Penn, signed up for "Real Men don't buy girls" aimed at stopping people buying underage girls for sex.
The Demi and Ashton Foundation, or DNA Foundation, hopes to raise awareness of the global problem that is also a curse in small towns and big cities across the United States and aiming to educate the public about child sex slavery in the United States..
Kutcher told CNN: "We want to create a cultural shift in the way men and women view young people selling themselves for sex."
He added: "Sex trafficking is an elastic trade. If you can raise the price for sex you can actually reduce the demand. As you reduce the demand that raises the price.
Kutcher said: "Right now most of these girls, if they are arrested, end up in juvey being prosecuted as opposed to be treated like a victim of rape. For the most part the guy is not charged with statutory rape which he should be."
To cut the demand side of the sex trade, Kutcher said: "First and foremost is do not participate, either you or your friends. If it's your friend then you say "I don't want to hang out with someone participating in that because you're hurting people."
"Secondly people can advocate for stronger laws supporting the rights of the victims. There are only six U.S. states that treat the girl like the victim."
In the United States there are 100,000 to 300,000 American children between 11 and 14 who are vulnerable to being sold for sex every year, according to Shared Hope's 2009 National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking.
Kutcher became interested in the issue after stumbling across a "Dateline" feature on sex trafficking in Cambodia. He was astounded by what he saw.
"I was watching six and seven-year-old girls being raped for profit," Kutcher says. "I said to myself: I don't want to live in a world where these things are happening and I'm not doing anything about them.
An estimated half million women are trafficked annually for the purpose of sexual slavery. They are "exported" to over 50 countries including Britain, Italy, Japan, Germany, Israel, Turkey, China, Kosovo, Canada and the United States. Misunderstood and widely tolerated, sex trafficking has become a multi- billion dollar underground industry.
