ABSTRACT
Children involved in prostitution should be treated primarily as the victims of abuse and their needs require careful assessment. This chapter describes how, in England and Wales, official constructions shifted in the twentieth century towards seeing the primary problems of prostitution as being the victimisation and vulnerability of women. It highlights the role played in this shift by the knowledge and practices of sexual health outreach projects. The chapter provides a more detailed look at the development of a national policy framework to deal with youth prostitution and how the definition of what sort of problem it is has shifted. Prostitution remains a plausible option as it always has done for young women with few other means of economically resourcing themselves. This is particularly true in the context of austerity Britain where services and support for young people have been dramatically cut and their social and economic precarity has dramatically increased.
