Breaking News: Young Girls Exploited for Sex in the UK

Link: Revealed: The horrific trade in British children for sex [Independent.co.uk]

This story has been in the news all week and this article is one of the less racist or alarmist pieces I have read on the matter.  It is surely an alarming matter when school girls are lured from their homes by charming older men who groom them and then share them amongst their friends as sex slaves; it is just a pity that it took this case involving a schoolgirl from Manchester to convince the public that slavery and sexual exploitation of children is alive and well in the United Kingdom. 

Actually, I wonder if even this case, as widely reported as it has been, will bring sufficient attention to the matter.  You just need to look on the resources page for the National Working Group for sexually exploited children and young people to see that they have been trying to draw attention to the matter of child sexual exploitation and pimping for some time now.  So why has this case drawn attention?  No doubt it is the racial element, the fact that in this case, Asian men abused a white girl.  That simply does not help.  Child abusers come from all walks of life and they prey indiscriminately on children and young people.  The victims just have to fit one profile and that is to be young, innocent and vulnerable. 

Joanne, because she is now 18, is no longer of any interest to her former pimp, says her mother. The teenager is mentally scarred, homeless and drug addicted. "She's not a child any more, so they're not interested. They've used her up and thrown her out. One of them said to her: 'In five years' time you'll be a crackhead out on the street and I'll be cruising with another 14-year-old.' Five years down the line, she is on drugs, on the streets. He – like he told her – is cruising with another 14-year-old." – Independent.co.uk, 15 August 2010