Anya says the perpetrators of child sexual exploitation see it not as paedophilia, but a business opportunity
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Anya lived with her mother, stepfather and younger half-siblings. She recounts that her mum was very strict and that like many teenagers, Anya was rebellious.
A series of circumstances and encounters with people who lived in her neighbourhood drew her into a web of exploitation, sexual abuse, threats and violence. She was trapped in this terrifying world for four years before she managed to escape.
When Anya was in her early teens she enjoyed hanging out with her friends and a group of boys her own age. Anya explains that at this stage, she did not know much about sex because in her family, it ‘was quite hidden … we didn’t talk about it’.
One of the boys sold Anya’s phone number to an older man – an Asian taxi driver called Mr A. He began calling her repeatedly, and waiting for her on her walk to school. He claimed there was a connection between his family and hers and this made her feel he was ‘not scary’.
She began to accept lifts in Mr A’s car, and he gave her gifts and cash. One day Mr A announced that as he had given Anya so many things, he expected sex.
She resisted, he chased her and beat her, but gave up the attempt to rape her. After this, she and her friend decided it was safer to spend time with people closer to their own age, and she met ‘a very charming and good-looking’ boy of English and south Asian dual heritage.
Unlike the other boys he did not pressure Anya for sex. He took her home to meet his father, Mr B, who flattered her, telling her ‘A pretty girl like you could make a lot of money’. He said he could help her have a ‘successful career’.
A few days later, Mr B approached her in his car. She says ‘I don’t know why I trusted him ... he was good with words, he made me feel I was worth something’. She got in and he drove her to a quiet lane and raped her. She describes this as ‘my first proper [sexual] experience’.
Anya describes how after the rape, she felt ‘This is what I am now’, and she started answering Mr A’s calls and going out with him in his car. She says ‘He was a violent man who got pleasure from hurting me’. She explains that the violence became worse over time.
Terrified of Mr A, she returned to Mr B, who began trafficking her throughout the region to have sex with different men. She says sometimes ‘the men had taken viagra and I’d be there for hours and come out like a zombie’. Mr B told her to charge the men three figure sums but she only received a small portion of that amount.
As her chaotic life of sexual exploitation continued, the abusers’ menaces became more extreme with threats being made against her and her family.
She explains that during the years of sexual abuse and exploitation, she loved school, as it was the only place she felt safe; she wanted to do well in school and to make her mum proud. ‘We weren’t allowed phones … I was good as gold, I had normal friends and talked about normal things’.
Anya attempted suicide but her attempt failed and after a hospital admission, she got a part-time job. She says this was the beginning of a life change for her. When she was 18 years old, she moved to a large city, but she says her anxiety that they would find her was so severe she moved every few months.
The sexual abuse and exploition perpetrated against Anya and other girls became the subject of a major police investigation. The revelation of what had happened to her had a devastating effect on her family.
The impacts of the abuse on Anya herself are numerous. She is unable to have good sexual relationships and has suffered domestic abuse. She has had severe depression, and other mental health issues. She was both over-protective and physically distant from her children when they were growing up.
It was concern about her parenting that prompted her to seek counselling. She says her therapist is ‘fabulous’. Anya shows profound insight into the issues she faces and has taken effective steps to overcome them.
She is equally articulate in her recommendations about how to help keep young people safe from abuse and exploitation. During the years she was abused, she regularly attended a sexual health clinic and her GP for numerous morning-after pills and more than one abortion. She believes there should have been communication between the two services, and that she should have been questioned about her frequent visits.
Anya also feels the police missed opportunities to prevent her abuse. Occasionally the older men she was with were stopped in their cars by the police, but even when she was as young as 14, she says the police just looked at her but asked no questions. She would like police to record everyone in the car when they make a stop.
If she had been provided with the right therapy in hospital after she tried to commit suicide, she believes her ordeal could have ended sooner.
She is concerned about licensing for taxi drivers and believes that all cabs should be fitted with internal cameras that cannot be turned off.
Following experiences that she had while she was pregnant and a new mother, Anya feels that healthcare professionals should be given better training regarding victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
Anya feels strongly that it is wrong that the previous history of victims and survivors can be brought up, but not the previous convictions of the accused. She says ‘I think the process breaks the victim more than it builds them’.
She now works to support other victims and survivors of child sexual exploitation and abuse.