DHAKA - The closure of hundreds of garment factories in Bangladesh, a consequence of the US war on terrorism, threatens to drive many unemployed women to prostitution, police and industry officials said on Tuesday.

Thousands of young women have been made jobless following the cancellation of garment export orders or due to a lack of new buyers in the wake of a US economic slowdown and its war on Afghanistan to hunt for Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept 11 attacks on US targets.

A police officer told Reuters that if conditions worsened in the event of more factories being shut, even children risked being dragged into the sex trade, something so far unseen in Bangladesh.

"In case of more factories being shut resulting in more losses of jobs, I am afraid even young children would join the sex trade ... like their mothers and sisters," said the officer who asked not to be named.

Ruhul Amin, an official with a privately-run garment factory, said: The undesirable shut down of factories is putting the women at most risk.

"Many would desperately look for other sources of income and are likely to be lured into the sex trade."

The more than 3 000 garment factories in Bangladesh employ nearly two million people, 90 per cent of them women.

About 1 000 factories have been shut because of recent poor demand.

Bangladeshi media has reported over the last few days that young jobless girls are turning to prostitution for a living.

Police said they had arrested about 100 ex-garment workers over the past one week for engaging in commercial sex in the capital Dhaka and nearby towns.

A private television network in Dhaka showed footage of several of the arrested women crying and saying they had no choice but to make a living somehow to survive.

- Nampa-Reuters