Introduction

Asked by a House of Commons select committee in 2012 what lay behind repeated failures in Rochdale to protect young teenagers and pre-teens from sexual exploitation, Sara Rowbotham answered simply and powerfully. She was coordinator of the local NHS crisis intervention team, which had made more than 100 largely fruitless referrals to social services and police between 2004 and 2010.

This chapter highlights stigmatised teenagers who have faced child sexual exploitation (CSE) or very young (especially preteen) pregnancy. It concentrates here on prejudiced, sexist attitudes to girls and young women and how these attitudes have contributed heavily to contemptuous perceptions of their suffering. This is not to deny that a significant minority of boys and young men have also faced sexual exploitation. Many of the changes called for in protection and provision will also be helpful to them, although certain perceptions which they face are different (see Chapter Nine).

This chapter describes sexist vilification, contempt and blame sexually exploited girls have faced from professionals, public and media alike. It challenges theories of so-called ‘political correctness’ as a reason for failing to bring to justice perpetrators from minority ethnic backgrounds. I argue that the most urgent need for professionals in ensuring genuine change is to examine very searchingly of themselves why, in CSE, their clear witness of distress and huge dereliction of care persisted decades after it was made clear through practice, legislation and legislative guidance that the young people were victims of exploitation, and must be treated as such. That has enabled perpetrators to continue using these girls as fodder for abuse, leading to enormous suffering which now cannot be undone.

Similar prejudices have meant very young pregnancies still fail to raise the strong suspicions they always should about possible rape or sexual abuse. (Indeed, with children under 13, sexual activity can never in law be consensual.) This is illustrated by cases including that of Tressa Middleton. She was billed in the media as ‘Scotland's youngest mother at 11’.