US police arrested 389 people on child sex trafficking charges in a major sweep across several states, The New York Times reported Thursday.

The five-day operation spanned 16 cities and involved hundreds of local, state and federal agencies dealing with missing children, many of them runaways, and identifying networks behind child trafficking for the sex trade, the report said.

Twenty-one sexually exploited children were rescued from the street, it added.

So far 433 exploited children have been rescued as a result of the initiative, the report quoted federal officials as saying.

Part of the rise in child sex trafficking is linked to the use of the Internet in advertising, authorities say.

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FBI

AFP