Predators at large (From The Northern Echo)

Predators at large

10:40am Wednesday 18th November 2009

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A new Barnardo’s report highlights concerns about the sexual exploitation of children and young people.

Steve Pratt reports on fears over the growth of child trafficking and the call for more support from local authorities.

IMOGEN was taken into care when she was 12. The girls in the house were a bit older and going out with older men. She tagged along with them as the group regularly went missing, running off to the boyfriends’ flats and houses.

“They gave me drink and smokes – it was a laugh,” she recalls. “Then one man started to take a special interest in me. he was much older, he was protective. 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, ‘It’s yours, use it when you need it’.”

There was a price to be paid. One night he asked her to dress up because they were going to a party. She was taken to London, hundreds of miles away from her home in the North- East, and told to have sex with different “friends”.

It became a familiar pattern. “I didn’t have any choice – I felt so guilty,” says Imogen.

“Eventually, he’d take me all over the country – Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, London.

He’d take me to hotels, some nights two or three. I never saw any money change hands.

Some men asked, ‘How old is she?’. Some asked, ‘Have you got any younger?’. They were really sick.

“I wanted to escape, but he [her boyfriend] just controlled me. It was a mental thing. I was terrified.”

After her boyfriend’s arrest, she made contact with Barnardo’s and, with their support, eventually went back to school and then on to university.

Imogen relates her shocking story for the Barnardo’s report Whose Child Now?, which highlights a worrying trend in organised child trafficking for sexual exploitation in the UK and identifies dangers to children who regularly go missing.

The report is based on a survey of Barnardo’s 21 specialist sexual exploitation services in the UK. Three projects operate in the North- East, making the region one of the leaders in this field with Secos (Sexually Exploited Children on the Streets) in Middlesbrough, ACE (Against Child Exploitation) in Stockton and Scarpa (Safeguarding Children at Risk, Prevention and Action) in Newcastle, a joint partnershp with the Children’s Society. The charity also has links, or is working with, local authorities in the Northumbria area to research and identify the problem.

Barnardo’s North-East is currently working with 103 sexually-exploited children and young people across the region.

Child sexual exploitation is defined as “the involvement of a child or young person below 18 in sexual activity for which a remuneration of cash or ‘in kind’ is given to the child or young person, or a third party or person. The perpetrator will have power over the young people by virtue of one or more of the following: age, emotional maturity, gender, physical strength and intellect.”

Secos takes referrals from police and social services. The organisation works with children missing from home and directly with sexually- exploited children. Most evenings, the outreach team are on the streets, checking parks and places where youngsters hang out, to ensure that they are safe. They visit bed and breakfasts, hostels and unsupported accommodation checking for vulnerable children and young people in need of support.

They are working with 48 young people aged between 14 and 18 – of which 17 came via the work with young runaways and at least ten are known to have been “trafficked” for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

Secos children’s service manager Wendy Shepherd says the situation was very different when the project began ten years ago.

Today, mobile technology and the internet means the problem has gone more underground.

“Men can speak to each other from a variety of different locations across and even outside the region. A child can be taken from one area to another,” she says.

“The young person believes they are going to some party with their steady, whom they believe loves them. When they get there, they find they’re expected to have sex with his friends.”

The situation in the North-East is better known than some other parts of the country because of the projects, but sexual exploitation is a national problem. Barnardo’s found that only 40 local authorities have some sort of special service dealing with it – which means 169 do not.

Ms Shepherd believes all authorities need to become more actively involved in seeking out sexual exploitation, which is becoming more organised with networks of older men grooming and trafficking children within the UK.

In particular, a large number of children and young people who run away from home are at risk of, and often suffer, sexual exploitation.

Ms Shepherd says: “The onus is on local authorities to take a look and not assume the problem’s not there. It’s easily hidden. Young people are not going to come in and talk to a police officer because they don’t understand the word sexual exploitation or what’s happened to them. And who wants to talk about that? It’s like rape. You’re talking about children of 13 or 14.”

While one of Barnardo’s main aims is to support the exploited, she believes a strong message must be sent to perpetrators that they will be reported, so the police can investigate.

THE work done in the past decade through Barnardo’s projects has been the region at the forefront of sexual exploitation.

“The North-East can be proud of what it’s doing – it’s doing a good job. But we can never take our eye off the ball,” Ms Shepherd says.

The internet and social networking sites have created fresh worries. “We’ve got to be more careful with the technology. There are more sophisticated ways of networking that can place children and young people at great risk.”.

“It’s a great tool for education but can be inappropriately used by men who want to abuse young people. We have to move with the times and be vigilant.”

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