Splintered Lives - Barnardo's

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Foreword
Denial of the sexual exploitation of children allows this horrific phenomenon to
continue. Most ordinary people distance themselves from considering the scale of
abuse, or find it difficult to make connections between the range of abuse inside and
outside the family. The existence of widespread sexual exploitation of children, the
difficulty of making this understood and the fact that it remains a hidden and often
ignored issue is a challenge to all those concerned with child protection.
There has been much exhortation to those working in child welfare to learn from
research and to draw on the experience of those with whom we work, yet there is a
dearth of research information on this subject which starts with the experiences of the
children themselves and encompasses a child protection perspective. The subject area
has a range of connections which defy the kind of neat categorisation that produces
straightforward approaches to tackling and eliminating the sexual exploitation of
children. And indeed, there are still, even now, views put forward that sexual
exploitation is to children less of a real issue than a 'moral panic'. The behaviour and
methods of child abusers are not fully understood, nor are the use of pornography in
the abuse of children, the growing international dimensions of such abuse and the
social and legal measures required to prevent abuse and protect children.
In responding to the need for further information to promote debate and action about
this issue Barnardo's, Childline, NCH Action for Children, NSPCC and NCVCCO came
together under the umbrella of the European Forum for Child Welfare to produce this
much needed source document, Splintered Lives. It draws together experience and
research of many of many different levels and types as a baseline for further
investigation. The organisations involved do not all have experience or precisely the
same views; our common ground is the recognition of what is happening to children
and the need for action. So this book also includes clear recommendations as to how
we can work together to eradicate such abuse.
We are extremely grateful to Liz Kelly, Rachel Wingfield, Linda Regan and Sheila Burton
for the work they have undertaken and for sharing our vision to seek new responses to
those abused in this way. We all recognise the need for wider public education and,
whilst this material is aimed primarily at professional audiences, we hope it will reach a
wider readership.
This is uncomfortable ground and the material is distressing, but we must be constantly
reminded of the voices of children crying out against the abuse and struggling to
survive the pain of their experiences. Whilst taking an international view of child
exploitation, we can never say it is something that happens 'over there' and we must
recognise the extent of the problems here in the UK. Recent research in Britain has
demonstrated that child prostitution is increasing here.* At ChildLine we reviewed notes
of 78 children who talked about pornography in a six month period. Of these, 32 talked
about sexual abuse linked to either being shown pornographic magazines or videos or
becoming involved in the making of abusive videos. Maybe the fact that the UK is so
slow in addressing issues such as sex tourism abroad is because we are able to close
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*The Game’s Up. Redefining Child Prostitution (1995) Mark Lee and Rachel O’Brien, published by The Children’s Society.