Family and social relationships

  • Changed attitudes towards self, family and friends.
  • Confrontational, abusive language, physical aggression to family members and pets.
  • Lying to parents and quick to provide answers when confronted by parents.
  • Receiving odd calls and messages from strangers on mobile phones.
  • Going missing from home at odd hours or days and ringing parents with requests to be collected from places where the child has no reason to visit.
  • Not revealing whereabouts and tending either not to answer the phone or to turn it off when contacted by family members.
  • Friendly with older men.
  • Turning up late at night and/or staying out at night.
  • Spending a lot of time alone in bedroom.
  • Disengaging with others, e.g. siblings and old friends.
  • Entering or leaving vehicles driven by unknown adults.
  • Reports from reliable sources suggesting likelihood of involvement in child sexual exploitation.
  • Detaching from age-appropriate activities.
  • Associating with other young people who are known to be sexually exploited.
  • Sexually active with a significantly older person.
  • Unexplained relationships with older adult.
  • Forming inappropriate relationships over the internet.
  • Adults or older youths loitering outside child’s usual place of residence.
  • Sightings at places known to be used for sexual exploitation.
 

Understanding Sexual Exploitation

A child is a person under the age of 18. Typically, perpetrators target children aged between 11 and 15.

'Sarah became very distant. She stopped eating properly and started losing weight.'

Parent

'Jodie was the sort of girl whose tops were up to her neck. She was really shy. She changed almost overnight...She was suddenly wearing tops with her bust practically out. She wore loads of jewellery and tons of over-the-top make-up.'

Parent

'What was worse was that her personality changed. She’d be a moody teenager sometimes, but nothing out of the ordinary. She became withdrawn, moody and nasty. She said that she hated me; that she was adopted.'

'She denied taking drugs, but she’d sometimes come home and wouldn’t shut up; her eyes would be fully dilated; she’d try to put loud music on in her bedroom and she wouldn’t go to sleep until five or six in the morning. Then she’d be in bed all day and get depressed.'

Parent

'She kept being ill all the time with colds. She looked really run down; her skin changed; her hair changed. I knew that wasn’t normal.'

Parent