Splintered Lives - Barnardo's

PAGE 64
chapter
10
Formal responses to
sexual exploitation of children
British legislation
There is a long tradition of responses to child prostitution in Britain; it was an issue
addressed by 'first wave' feminists, child welfare and philanthropic organisations in the
nineteenth century. Whilst prostitution and trafficking were major concerns, the issue of
child pornography was less central, primarily due to its (then) lesser prevalence. These
earlier responses combined campaigns for legislative reform and law enforcement with
education and 'rescue' services.
How to respond to both prostitution and pornography is a contested issue in relation to
adults, and many of these debates have resonances in relation to responses to children.
A range of organised (and semi-organised) interest groups have stakes in this issue,
including:
�� producers/organisers and customers who support minimal restrictions;
�� sex industry workers who resent the way they are criminalised and policed;
�� sexual libertarians who view any legal restrictions as an invasion of personal
freedom;
�� feminists who view the sex industry as both predicated upon, and reproducing,
women and children's oppression;
�� fundamentalist religious groups who view explicit sexuality outside of formal
heterosexual unions as a threat to religious values.
Only a minority of those supporting minimal restrictions apply this to children, instead
arguing that there are different issues involved here. The distinction is, however, not
that simple, since many adults currently working in the sex industry entered as
children/young people. At what point, and for what reasons can we say that individuals
are in a context where they are able to take adult decisions, uncontaminated by past
experiences? As adults, as well as children, they may have no realistic alternatives.
In recent debates regarding adult pornography it has been suggested that current
assault and sexual offenses legislation should be sufficient to cover the coercive aspects
of production (see, for example, Assiter and Carol, 1993). This would clearly not cover
child pornography as such, since there is currently no act defined as an offence outside
legislation on pornography. Whilst current sexual offenses legislation might apply to
child prostitution, evidence we presented earlier demonstrates that it is not being
enforced in this way.
The history of recent British legislation on child pornography begins with Section 1 of the
Protection of Children Act 1978 which specifies several offenses: