Most evenings two or three gutsy women board a minibus for a tour of the town\u2019s red light areas. They take a supply of sandwiches and hot drinks and drive around the local hot spots \u2013 streets frequented by prostitutes, the town centre, parks and the seedier bed & breakfast establishments. They are looking for trouble \u2013 or at least the potential for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we see a 13 year old girl with a can of beer on the streets or in a park at 10.30 at night we stop the minibus,\u201d says Wendy Shepherd, the leader of the teams of specialist workers at the child sexual exploitation unit of children\u2019s charity Barnardo\u2019s in the north-east of England.<\/p>\n
Four nights a week a vehicle tours the town in search of children vulnerable to sexual exploitation \u2013 and sometimes confronting the pimps who exploit them. They can be faced with harrowing situations like the aftermath of sexual assaults. Some nights they might work until 3am.<\/p>\n
In most of Britain\u2019s towns and cities there are such areas \u2013 and such children \u2013 even if most of the public prefers not to notice.\u00a0 The problem is far greater \u2013 and more pernicious \u2013 than most of us might imagine.<\/p>\n
Wendy Shepherd\u2019s team routinely encounters children under 16 drunkenly tottering the streets, or sees girls of 14 sitting on a wall in a known prostitutes\u2019 pick-up spot, or encounters desperate young women of 16 and over living in seedy bed & breakfast houses \u2013 which can become a nest of drug-dealing and sex-for-hire. \u00a0She asked me not to disclose the name of the town where we met for fear of identifying and stigmatising the girls involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of these are run by unscrupulous landlords only interested in collecting the rent direct from housing benefit,\u201d says Wendy, a bluff no-nonsense local woman with 15 years experience working with vulnerable children and adult prostitutes. \u201cThey can be terrible places with dirty stained mattresses, filthy fridges, cookers that don\u2019t work and, even, with excrement and blood from previous tenants streaked on the walls.<\/p>\n
Some of the existing tenants are insalubrious characters who offer free drugs to 16-year-old newcomers \u2013 and then demand that they carry drugs locally as payment. \u201cOne girl told us that, if she was forced to carry on living in such a B&B, she was convinced she would be raped by other tenants. Three days later she was,\u201d Wendy recalls.\u00a0 \u201cVulnerable young people shouldn\u2019t be put in the same places as adults with these kind of problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the seedier spots the Barnardo\u2019s team routinely visits are the central bus station\u2019s toilets where graffiti regularly advertises that 14 year old boys are wanted for sex. They even discovered a peephole by the urinals in the public toilets in a shopping mall next to a children\u2019s cr\u00e8che.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you pick up a stone you\u2019ll find all sorts of things underneath,\u201d Wendy Shepherd says, grimly. \u201cAnd we\u2019re not afraid to pick up the stone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barnardo\u2019s is one of the three charities being supported by Independent<\/em> readers in this year\u2019s Christmas Appeal. Its team has had significant success, in co-operation with the local police and council. The town, which the local evening paper says a decade ago had the unenviable reputation as the region\u2019s prostitution capital, has since recorded dramatic falls in the number of kerb crawlers and prostitutes.<\/p>\n \u201cTen years ago there were 250 women on the streets here,\u201d Wendy says. \u201cNow that\u2019s down to around 75. That success is down to a combination of a police crackdown on kerb crawlers and Barnardo\u2019s interventions which range from simply offering young girls a lift home to devising longer-term strategies to help young women find an exit from prostitution. \u201cWe offer the Barnardo\u2019s centre to them as a regular safe haven and we work with children and schools on prevention strategies to stop today\u2019s teenagers becoming tomorrow\u2019s prostitutes.\u201d<\/p>\n But a new problem is emerging. Increasingly young girls are being groomed by older men and invited to \u201cparties\u201d where they are coerced into sex with strangers. \u201cIt begins with a young girl, who may have had a major row with her mother and walked out of her home, being befriended by an adult male,\u201d Wendy says.<\/p>\n \u201cThey take them out for meals, buy them the latest mobile phone or snazzy trainers, and generally charm them. Then, when they are convinced they have found a great boyfriend, they get invited to a party where he says: \u2018My mate fancies you, will you go to bed with him? You will if you love me\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the girls rescued by Barnardo\u2019s explains the process from the inside: \u201cMy mum wasn\u2019t around anymore, my dad was drinking and my sister was skipping school,\u201d says Jess. \u201cI was 15 and got involved with a group of friends outside school \u2013 they were older. At first I thought it was really cool to have older friends \u2013 they were drinking and there was a lot of drugs around.<\/p>\n \u201cI was already drinking when I met them \u2013 it didn\u2019t bother me,\u2019 says Jess.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the drugs were new. I thought, if they were doing it \u2013 then it must be okay. And at first it was okay \u2013 I could get the money from my dad. But after a couple of weeks, I was getting hooked and there wasn\u2019t enough money.<\/p>\n \u2018My new friends said that it was fine and introduced me to a new male friend. They said he fancied me and that I should go out with him. I didn\u2019t realise what was happening \u2013 I was being set up. After I had slept with him I realised that I\u2019d been used but it was too late: I was hooked on drugs. The situation was frightening \u2013 but I didn\u2019t know how I could change things.\u201d<\/p>\n Various techniques are used to disempower the girls. \u201cThey get taken somewhere in a\u00a0 car,\u201d says Wendy Shepherd. \u201cThey\u2019re not sure where they are, how they\u2019re going to get home. Or they go to the door at the party and find it locked. Or the \u2018boyfriend\u2019 says: \u2018You haven\u2019t told your Mam where you are, so what are you going to say to her? Or they say: \u2018I\u2019ve got photos of you; I\u2019ll send them to your Mam. You\u2019re on video; I\u2019ll put it on the internet if you don\u2019t co-operate. You\u2019re nothing but a slapper; who\u2019s going to believe you?\u201d<\/p>\n They prey on the girls\u2019 confused feelings. Some say \u2018I like him, why is this happening to me?\u2019. Others feel guilty or ashamed which keeps them silent. Others get hooked into a relationship with a man who alternates charm, or constantly saying he\u2019s sorry, with coercion and threats.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to talk…. out about girls being trafficked in this country; no one wants to believe it,\u201d says Lizzie, who was sucked into a kind of sexual slavery when she was just 12 after she was taken into care. \u201cThe girls in the home were all a bit older than me and were going out with older men, at first I just tagged along,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n To a 12-year-old it all seemed very exciting. \u201cThey gave me drink and smokes \u2013 it was a laugh. Then one man started to take a special interest in me. He was much older, he was protective \u2013 I felt looked after, wanted, loved even. He gave me everything I wanted and when I was 13 he handed over the keys to a flat and said \u2018It\u2019s yours, use it when you need it\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n For a youngster with no family support and little self-esteem it seemed like a dream come true, but before long it was pay-back time. One night her \u2018boyfriend\u2019 asked her to dress-up for a party. She was taken to London and was told to have sex with various \u2018friends\u2019 of his. Next came \u2018parties\u2019 in Manchester, Leeds and Bradford.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019d take me to hotels, some nights two or three,\u201d Lizzie remembers. \u201cI never saw any money change hands. Some men asked \u2018How old is she?\u2019. Some asked \u2018Have you got any younger?\u2019 They were really sick,\u201d she says. \u201cI wanted to escape, but he just controlled me \u2013 it was a mental thing, I was terrified,\u201d she says, looking back.<\/p>\n Some of these trapped children attempt suicide. Others internalise the behaviour and make it their identity.<\/p>\n There comes a point, says Wendy Shepherd, where \u201cin the end, they say, this is what I do.\u201d In conversation with adult prostitutes over the years, she says, \u201cyou find that they start at 14, on average\u201d.<\/p>\n Barnardo\u2019s strategy is to offer alternatives to children before they become enmeshed in such traps. One of those who has been successfully helped is Kaylee, who was 15 when a Barnardo\u2019s education worker paid a visit to her school. Her teachers earmarked Kaylee to see the worker because all the \u2018risk\u2019 signs were there: she had family problems, was using alcohol and drugs and was staying out at night.<\/p>\n Kaylee was selected as part of the group to do a diary project and to talk about the dangers of abusive relationships and the help offered by Barnardo\u2019s. It made her realise that she too was being \u2018groomed\u2019 for sexual exploitation.<\/p>\n But she was already entangled. \u201cI didn\u2019t see myself as a victim, but I realised that what was happening to me was wrong. Then one night I was raped. I didn\u2019t know what to do but I kept thinking about the lesson in school and although I was really frightened I found the address and went to Barnardo\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n Two years on, Barnardo\u2019s have helped Kaylee get a place at college, gain qualifications, get a job and find her own place to live. \u00a0\u201cI knew that the drugs and abuse wasn\u2019t my destiny,\u201d she says today. \u201cSo I changed it \u2013 with the project\u2019s help.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Some names have been changed to protect the children in this article<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most evenings two or three gutsy women board a minibus for a tour of the town\u2019s red light areas. They take a supply of sandwiches and hot drinks and drive around the local hot spots \u2013 streets frequented by prostitutes, the town centre, parks and the seedier bed & breakfast establishments. They are looking for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,38],"tags":[11,275],"class_list":["post-3195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sex-power","category-society","tag-children","tag-prostitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3195"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7434,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195\/revisions\/7434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}