of drugs, sex, and sometimes prostitution, Health and Social Services Minister the Hon. Quinton Edness yesterday warned.

And he appealed to all adults "to see to it that this is stopped''.

Noting that hundreds of youths, from 12-years-old and up, were hanging out until the early hours of the morning during the summer, Mr. Edness told The Royal Gazette : "I have a continuing concern for what's happening to young people in Bermuda. More and more young people are getting into difficulty than needs to happen in our society.'' And while he did not have statistics at his fingertips, Mr. Edness said his Ministry is seeing an increasing number of families "who have children getting into all kinds of trouble''.

"These children are running wild,'' he added. "They are getting involved with soft drugs. In addition to that there are adults in this society who prey on young children and entice them into situations including drugs, sex, and teenage prostitution.'' "Maybe 20 years ago we were able to say we did not have prostitution,'' Mr.

Edness said. "But it is growing at an alarming rate.

"There are people, men, who seemingly go where young girls are with a view to enticing them into sexual situation.'' This, he added, can happen around the outskirts of schools and at social events.

Mr. Edness said whenever Police can obtain enough evidence of this, such men are hauled before the courts.

But, he said, that depended on whether the child was willing to report the offence.

It is bad enough that such children are at risk of becoming addicted to drugs and/or pregnant, Mr. Edness said, but the fact that they were also at risk to contracting the deadly AIDS virus was even more "terrifying''.

To date, Bermuda has lost 212 people to AIDS, while 237 people are reportedly living with the disease and another 190 are HIV infected. The majority of those with AIDS fall into the 30-39 age group, which indicates that they more than likely contracted the AIDS virus in their teens and early 20s given its long incubation period.

"This means that everyone of us have to sit up and pay attention,'' Mr.

Edness said, "because if not, it means that the rate of AIDS will spread faster.'' This emphasised the need for all adults to get involved in finding ways to stop such behaviour, he added.

"We as parents, as adults, church members, social club members, Government have got to focus on what is happening to our young people before things like prostitution, teenage violence, and pregnancy increases.'' He said while Government was spending millions of taxpayer dollars on children and families by revamping the education system, expanding services like the Child Development programme and other Social Services, it could not handle the problem alone.

"No one person has the answer,'' Mr. Edness said. "But it is up to the adult community to see to it that this is stopped.

"And it is not enough to say that my family is okay, my children are okay so I don't have to do anything. We have to find ways to stop this.'' He suggested that parents, neighbours, MPs, and clergy get together and talk about how they can help.

If not, Mr. Edness warned, "there's going to come a time when Bermuda is not going to be a safe place''.