ordered following reports it was on the rise and snaring teenagers as young as 13.

Anyone caught prostituting, pimping or hiring a prostitute would be arrested and hauled into court, Social Services Minister the Hon. Quinton Edness declared.

And the Minister said he would fight to provide the Police Force with any support needed to stamp out the "menace'' before it took hold.

Residents must work collectively to rid the streets of prostitutes, he said.

Noting there had been few arrests of prostitutes and their clients in the past, he said, "The Police are on the front line and must take the initiative.'' Mr. Edness believed it would take only a few arrests of men caught hiring prostitutes to "stop (prostitution) dead in its tracks''.

"The Police and the criminal justice system must be vigilant and come down hard on prostitutes,'' he said. "And, in particular, they must catch any man buying sex and send him before the courts, because this is a small community and it would be a very embarrassing thing for them.'' He added it was a double offence for a man to hire a prostitute who was under 16.

Mr. Edness acknowledged cuts had been made to the Police Force due to the recession.

But he said: "If they want more manpower or resources to deal with the problem then we will make it our case to fight to assist them in getting it.

"Bermuda does not need another ailment such as prostitution and every resource must be used to stamp it out and show that the country will not tolerate it.

"Bermuda can not afford the social problems caused by the illegal sale of sex and it is not good for tourism.'' Opposition Social Services spokesman Mr. Nelson Bascome claimed Government had taken a "half-hearted'' approach to the problem when he raised it during the Spring session of Parliament.

"I pointed it out in April that the number of prostitutes, including teenagers, frequenting our streets was on the rise,'' he said. "But it was downplayed by Government as not being all that widespread.'' Mr. Bascome said that while he supported Government ordering Police to clamp down on prostitution, more could be done to keep teenagers from taking the path.

Government needed to survey teenagers about what problems they were facing, he said. And more could be done to keep them in "constructive'' environments such as college and university.

"There is a lack of opportunity for our young people,'' he said. Mr. Edness countered by saying: "I don't know if (the rise in prostitution) had been going on 18 months or one year. The fact is it is now noticeable and reaching proportions where it could take hold and become a blight in our society forever. We must deal with it now.'' Family Services, meanwhile, expressed no surprise that teenagers as young as 13 were out on the street selling sexual favours -- although no specific cases had been referred to them. Department supervisor Ms Glenda Edwards said teen sex in general was rampant in Bermuda and it was time parents, educators, churches and the rest of the community faced up to the fact.

School girls as young as 11 and 12 were having sex, often with men older than 20, she said.

She had even heard of a case of a sexually active ten-year-old girl.

And a school girl who was barely 13 had told a social worker she was embarrassed not to have had sex yet because the rest of her friends had.

Ms Edwards added there was also evidence of increasingly aggressive sexual behaviour among teenagers: "There are 13 and 14-year-old girls counting how many guys they `scored' with,'' she said.

She blamed the widespread promiscuity on lack of family role models, lack of parental supervision and Bermuda's high illegitimacy rate.

Police claimed on Tuesday that in the last 18 months they had seen a surge in prostitution on Bermuda's streets, from the back of town to Front Street. On weekends, up to a dozen prostitutes, some as young as 13 and 15, could be seen waiting outside city night spots to ply their trade.

Sex was even going on in Front Street alleyways, Narcotics Chief Insp. Norrell Hull said.

And warning of the spread of AIDS with prostitution, private investigator Mr.

Angus Brown said he had seen teenage prostitution "mushroom'' in the last 12 months. He even knew of a 12-year-old prostitute, he said.