ABSTRACT

This book focuses on the sexual exploitation of children and young people. It pulls together various strands of work that have taken place in the field and places the needs of the child at the centre. I will now outline some reoccurring and interconnected themes within the book. Firstly, the needs of individual children have to be seen within the context within which they live. The issue is that if we focus only on the needs of the individual young person, we thereby pathologise them. The social structure and circumstances that might have contributed to producing some of the young person’s problems in the first place remain intact while the individual is seen as the problem. I hope to have incorporated the need to address the range of social inequalities that contribute to young people becoming vulnerable to sexual exploitation alongside looking at individual need. This raises questions about the ‘cause’ of sexual exploitation. Some will

argue that it is a direct result of a patriarchal system that creates gender power imbalances. To tackle sexual exploitation we need to focus on male sexual and physical violence towards women. While I have sympathy with this position, I explore some other, wider causes for sexual exploitation within the book, which put forward other viewpoints, and which address the needs of boys and young men alongside girls and young women. I hope to embrace a range of reasons for vulnerability to sexual exploitation, including economic inequality; familial problems such as drug and alcohol dependency and mental health problems; problems experienced by young people looked after and in care with the local authority; and individual problems such as low self-esteem, self-harming behaviour and problems with attachment. Related to this I have argued that sexual exploitation is, as a form of sexual

abuse, a concern for child protection. However, other agencies such as health and education within children’s services have a central role in identifying and responding to sexually exploited children and young people. Child protection services have been developed primarily with the needs of children suffering from familial sexual abuse within the home in mind. They may not be adequately resourced to respond to the various needs of an older young person undergoing

I also note that government guidance documents and different levels of leg-

islation cannot be enough to protect the young people concerned. Through the updating of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 to the Sexual Offences Act 2003 we have a plethora of new legislation aimed at protecting children and young people from sexual exploitation, whether actual or intended. Children and young people are to be protected by law from non-consensual sexual activity (Sections 3 and 4) and from someone over 18 causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity (Section 10). The arranging or facilitating the commission of a child is a sexual offence, with the intent being an offence whether or not the sex takes place (Section 14), and meeting a child following grooming is an offence, again even if the intended sexual activity does not take place (Section 15) (Sexual Offences Act 2003). However, this, along with the different policy guidance documents issued by

the government on work with young people will not impact on sexually exploited young people unless they are implemented, their use reviewed, monitored and evaluated. I am aware that such call for evaluation is resource intensive, and I do not advocate that a call for data collection and monitoring of services is made without additional resourcing to support this. The point is that we need to know how many sexually exploited young people there are in the UK. We need to know what services exist to support them and learn from the lessons that they can teach us. Children’s charities have taken a big step forward in guiding how this can happen (see Scott and Skidmore 2006 for an example). However, for health services (including sexual and mental health services), education and employment and police interventions to be effective, implementation strategies and evaluations are essential. This is particularly pertinent as the government has just issued its revised guidance on safeguarding sexually exploited children and young people (DCSF 2009). This is a step forward, but will only be effective if accompanied by an implementation strategy that aims to share examples of good practice across and between agencies in the country. The book also touches on the familiar debate about whether the resources

that are available for young people should be generic – tailored for universal use, or targeted – tailored for use by those most in need. The argument for universal services is that disadvantaged young people do not become stigmatised or labelled. All young people are encouraged to access the same level of service provision. The problem with this is that those who are most in need of service provision, the most alienated and disadvantaged, may not be able to access the service, or, if they do, may have to be excluded for fear of disrupting the majority. The argument for targeted services is based on the premise that a minority of young people have specific needs that require particular interventions with specially trained and supported staff. The recent focus on this debate is explored in a paper on ‘Integrated Youth Support Services’, which argues that while targeted youth support is about helping vulnerable young people with

needs’ (Weinstock 2007: 1). In this book I argue that while the focus should be on protecting sexually

exploited children and young people from abuse through specialist targeted child protection interventions and safeguarding children boards, the generic universal providers should also be providing support services to encourage and enable all young people to access their service. Just as other young people, those who are sexually exploited will have, or will have had, aspirations to achieve their aims and dreams. As said by one young woman who, with support from a specialist project was reflecting on her situation:

I don’t want to be a junkie … I should be living a very good life. The way I used to dream when I was a little girl. This is not my dream. This is not my dream at all. Its my nightmare. The worst nightmare

(Issy, aged 17, in Pearce et al 2002)

Another, who following intense support from a targeted service provider, was able to engage with the universal provision, the local college noted that:

In college you see a lot of young kids smiling. Why can’t I be like that? Its about time I put my life together. I’ve learnt my mistakes with boys and everything. I’m not getting involved with a boy again. I’m going to concentrate on my studies and become someone someday.