The only significant ‘relationships’ Hallie had as a young girl were with men who sexually abused her
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Hallie had a difficult childhood and she craved care and affection.
She was sexually abused by several adult men who exploited her vulnerability.
Hallie lived with her mother and grandfather. She describes herself as ‘an unloved, physically immature child’ and says she was always desperate for attention.
She made friends with an older girl and one day the two of them went to a park and met up with some older boys. She went home with one of them, who was 17. He tried to rape her, and after this he further sexually abused her. Hallie was 12 years old.
The young man told Hallie that if she didn't know or understand what to do he would get himself another girlfriend. She says she didn’t really understand what was happening, but she was so young and naive, and craving love, that she wanted to believe he was her boyfriend.
A short time after, Hallie was placed in care. She went out with an older girl and they went back to a house where there were several men. She ‘got together’ with a man aged around 23, who told her he wanted her to be his girlfriend. She believed he loved her, even though he ‘passed her around’ a group of other men.
She now thinks this may have been a paedophile ring and understands that she was sexually abused by them.
Hallie remembers her social worker asking her about her involvement with this man, and warning her that he had convictions and was not ‘ok’. A few months later the police interviewed her as part of an investigation into him. She told them what he had done to her and he was prosecuted and sent to prison. She says she felt her boyfriend had been taken away from her.
The next year, when Hallie was in her early teens, she was placed in another foster home. Two adult friends of the foster carer, who she thinks were in their 30s, regularly sexually abused her, in and outside the home.
Looking back, Hallie wonders why she was so compliant when she was being abused, and why she didn’t tell anyone. However, she is not sure anyone would have actually believed her. ‘A kid in care … they would say I was asking for it’ she says.
Around this time she discovered she was pregnant and an abortion was arranged for her. She was not given any support by social services or her carers and was sent to and from the clinic alone, by taxi.
Hallie feels that she was so vulnerable and isolated she was ‘an easy picking’ for predators.
She says it is really important that children, particularly those in care, should be helped to see the difference between relationships based on sex and those based on love.
She can now see that she was easily manipulated by sexual abusers because she thought she was entering into loving relationships with them, and that they valued her.
Hallie also highlights that children in care need professional staff to emotionally support them and to help navigate their way through relationships.