Barnardo’s Sexual Exploitation of Children On the Streets

Barnardo’s SECOS (Sexual Exploitation of Children On the Streets) Project works to enable young people to exit and recover from sexual exploitation through prostitution.

• The average age for young women who are sexually exploited and being abused in Middlesbrough is between 12 and 13 years old
• Barnardo’s has worked with boys and girls as young as 10 and 11 who are known to have been sexually exploited
• Children and young people who are exploited can be subject to physical abuse and imprisonment by the perpetrators
• 87% of the exploited children we have worked with were involved in drug misuse, 55% were regularly missing from home and 53% were engaged in self harming behaviour such as self-mutilation, overdosing, eating disorders and crime

Wendy Shepherd, Children’s Service Manager in the North East says:

I believe that sexual exploitation is becoming more organised; the criminals who abuse are more sophisticated. There are networks of older men grooming and trafficking children within the UK. It’s a growing phenomenon and it’s extremely difficult to police. Another area of concern for the practitioners is the frightening number of children who go missing repeatedly and are found to have been sexually exploited. It’s a huge risk factor for youngsters and we are worried that it’s still largely being ignored.”

• The young people’s descriptions of how they entered into sexually exploitative relationships was common in that they revealed a process of being groomed, introduced, guided and coerced by an abusing adult who was also often their drug dealer and/or boyfriend
• Barnardo’s runs specialist sexual exploitation projects that offer a safe, confidential environment where young people can go for help, advice and support. Our project workers actively seek out young people, offering them the long-term support they need if they want to change their way of life. The projects also work with schools and others to educate vulnerable young people to protect them from exploitation, including the police to bring about the prosecution of perpetrators of sexual exploitation.
• Our sexual exploitation services in the North East recognise the holistic needs of the young people coming to the project and from our research it was evident that the major issues facing these children are abuse; becoming missing from home; substance misusing; sexual health, emotional and general wellbeing.
• Barnardo’s SECOS (Sexual Exploitation of Children on the Streets) Project works to enable young people to exit and recover from sexual exploitation. The project works with young people in the Tees Valley, and their bases are located in Darlington, Middlesbrough and Stockton. Telephone 01642 819743 for further information
• The Barnardos SECOS Project receives support from Middlesbrough Children’s Fund, Northern Rock Foundation, Comic Relief, Safer Middlesbrough Partnership Drug Action Team and Middlesbrough PCT

Child sexual exploitation is 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 person by virtue of one or more of the following: age, emotional maturity, gender, physical strength and intellect"

(Palmer, 2001).

We believe in the potential in every child and young person, no matter who they are, what they have done or what they have been through. We will support them, stand up for them and bring out the best in each and every child.

Barnardo’s report "Whose Child Now?" revisits the issue of child sexual exploitation 11 years on from our first report in 1998, ‘Whose Daughter Next?’ It describes some of the key issues for children affected by sexual exploitation and looks at some of the links between this form of abuse, children who go missing and child trafficking within the UK.