Fear that children in Irish care being sexually exploited

There is concern among social care professionals that children in the Irish system are being sexually exploited.

“Given the known levels of sexual exploitation of children in care in the North, England, Scotland and Wales, it would be naive and dangerous to think we don’t have similar problems, in this regard, in the Republic,” Maurice Fenton, academic and social care professional, told the Irish Examiner.

His comments came on the first day of the Social Care Ireland (SCI) conference, where a special workshop on ‘Recognising and Responding to Sexual Exploitation of Vulnerable Young People’ was held. The incidences of exploitation are a result of sexual predators, outside the system, targeting vulnerable young people.

While there is no academic research into the sexual exploitation of children in the Irish care system, there is anecdotal evidence that it is occurring.

Maurice Fenton arrives at the conference in Kildare.

Three social care professionals, Linda McGuinness, Caroline Cronly, and Lorraine Perkins, have designed a training programme to respond to increased concerns regarding the sexual exploitation of vulnerable young people.

“There is no validated research, so it’s just around noticing things and realising that there may be an issue. It’s noticing patterns. We need to train people to recognise signs,” said Ms McGuinness.

Behaviour patterns in children that indicate they are possibly being sexually exploited include: an increase in disposable income, or unaccounted money; taking of longer showers (to feel clean); having more than one phone; being picked up in unknown cars or unknown people loitering in the area of the care home.

“This is soft research that we would have noticed,” said Ms Perkins. Asked if it was organised targeting of children in care, Ms Perkins said: “It could be organised and it could not be. We would have individuals that seek out these vulnerable young people.”

Ms Cronly said there will always be people who target vulnerable children and it is something she has seen first-hand.

“There will always be men who abuse vulnerable kids and use them for what they want to do, whether it be sexual exploitation or getting into criminal activity.

“When I ran the Centre for Homeless Youth, you would have seen it all the time. You’d wonder why they’d be doing it and then you’d realise that there was some other adult directing what they were doing, for whatever reason, blackmailing them, doing the whole grooming thing,” Ms Cronly said.

She added that the reccurring sighting of a vehicle collecting a girl from a care home would be a major tell-tale sign that something untoward was happening.

“If I’m seeing the same vehicle collecting a girl all the time, I will be very sure that that person has targeted that child. Whether it’s organised or it’s a gang, I couldn’t tell you, but I would know that that person is taking advantage of that young person.

“I went out one day, I approached them (the driver of a vehicle), and they just took off, but I wanted to see and they just left,” said Ms Cronly.

The social care professionals say that the sexual exploitation might have begun with a random meeting at a party and might have developed from there.

“You might get someone who’s in a long-term relationship with somebody who’s treble their age, and they’ve been groomed and they can’t see it and think it’s a positive relationship,” said Ms Perkins.

“These kids don’t think they’re involved in prostitution. They come back with their nails done or they come back with a new hair-do or hair extensions, or things like that. These are just patterns — there’s a gain. They feel like they’re in control. They wouldn’t tell you they’re in prostitution,” Ms McGuinness said.