Introduction

In this chapter I make two key points about service delivery for sexually exploited children and young people. First, I argue that while there have been some helpful developments in policy and practice that raise the profile of sexually exploited children and young people's needs (HM Government, 2008b; DCSF, 2008), these have mainly been focused on child protection agendas. Other considerations, such as the housing needs of young people, their education and training needs and their health needs have been overlooked. Despite Local Safeguarding Children Boards being multi-agency, the focus has remained on child protection issues, leaving many sexually exploited young people, particularly 16- to 18-year-olds, without access to the full range of service provision to which they are entitled. I therefore argue that there needs to be a shift in the locus of intervention. Second, I argue that, as a consequence of the focus on child protection, sexually exploited children and young people are seen first and foremost as victims of abuse. This dominant definition hides other important aspects of the child's identity. I therefore provide an analysis of sexual exploitation that does not reify the young person's experiences of victimisation, but that locates ‘the problem’ of sexual exploitation as a social welfare problem.

A background context

In the mid 1970s I attended a memorable feminist conference on rape and domestic violence against women. For me, the most powerful talk was by an established and well-respected practitioner/academic who referred to the fact that she herself had been a victim of rape, noting the trauma and the damage that it had caused. However, her point was that, while she had been a victim of rape, she had fought to prevent herself from becoming a victim for the rest of her life. She compared the impact of the rape on her life with the deep significance that her mother's death had had, and explained that, in her view, each individual reconstructs the impact of a tragedy on their life in ways personal to them. There is no one event, such as rape, domestic violence or, indeed, sexual exploitation, that can ever universally be claimed to be the ‘worst’ thing that can ever happen to someone. Similarly, there can be no one definition of ‘victim’ that can encompass the way that different people respond.