to feel sick every time I hear someone say

[FocaultOff]

child prostitute. Is it just semantics to prefer prostituted child? I'm reading all these news articles from both current day and the 1980s and 1990s and it really seems to be that the children being described are first and foremost prostitutes, secondly they happen to be children - when surely it should be that they are children first, who are being prostituted. So far I think I've only read one article in the Belfast Telegraph that made the distinction.

Is it splitting hairs or does it indicate perhaps why vulnerable children in care find themselves being abused if the society in which they live then defines them as a prostitute?

Cheerful Yank - sadly, as a survivor of child rape, I can tell you exactly why four was the age chosen.

Because before the age of four, a child has a far higher risk of death from penetrative sex than a child over 4.

In a child aged 4 and over, it just causes horrific injuries instead, that can affect their ability to carry a child to term, but doesn't actually KILL them.

Sorry to be so blunt.

And on that note, I think that this isn't the thread for me...

Oh Merry.... ((hugs)) wont help but I send them anyway.

jesus Merry so sorry you even know that but I didn't even stop to think why that particular age - it's what's in their lobbying materials they sent to the Home Office- it's a really horrific but important point you make so thank you for making it because people should know ...and obviously plenty more hugs too

Merry please don't go. Stay either here or in other mumsnet sites.

Child and prostitute should never be in the same sentence.

Couthy

I detest these victim-blaming expressions.

The sadistic paeodophile Sidney Cooke (amongst others) killed a looked-after child called Jason Swift and at the time of his murder he was widely described as "14 year old rent boy"

Poor lad had nobody to look after him even after his death.

Couthy I am so sorry.

It just encompasses every sort of abuse, doesn't it. Terrible physical trauma, and terrible emotional abuse in the form of fear and shame and manipulation. It makes me sick, I just want to scream "what makes you think you have the fucking right". :(

Audrina I hadn't heard of poor Jason Swift...why on earth were those men ever released from prison?

Yanbu.

Child prostitute implys a choice. Where it is not possible for the choice to legally be made
Prostituted child makes it clear that a child was abused.

It should be extreme horrific child abuse.

The body. I won't leave MN it'd kill me!

I just meant leave this thread. Which I don't seem to be doing a very good job of.

Thing is, it's a life sentence in more ways than one. The earlier you become 'sexually active', through choice or otherwise, the higher the likelyhood that you will develop cervical cancer.

I am 31 now, and whilst I have dealt with the MH side of it all, I have just been informed that I have CIN3 changes (severe dyskaryosis) on my smear test, with a possibility that they have developed further. Ian having cervical loop diathermy in a week and a half.

So even 27 years later, it is STILL medically affecting me.

So the semantics DOES matter. They are prostituted children, NOT child prostitutes!

Oh Merry I am so sorry.

I have never thought about the language used until this thread, and agree with the OP. Thought provoking thread. And language is so powerful. Also have never heard of poor Jason Swift.

I am also leaving the thread. I want to go and hug my children.

I work in the field and we wouldn't even use 'prostituted children', we simply use 'abused' or where there is an organised or commercial element we use 'sexually exploited'. Language is hugely important and we're forever pulling up other professionals, journalists etc.

Or "sexual contact with a child." RAPE! It's RAPE ffs.

OP you are right. Child prostitute is a vile phrase.

There's another one that makes me want to puke.

Inciting a minor for xyz. Or however they exactly word it.

It should be worded to make it very very clear that the person has colluded in the rape and abuse of a child.

I hate it when a murderer is reported to have 'killed prostitutes'. Or 'killed a prostitute, Jane Brown (or whoever)'. Why not say just women? (Or men). Someone's daughter, someone's mum, someone's sister.

I have also never thought about it - but you're absolutely right.

Peter Sutcliffe killed (and attacked) a number of women who were not working as prostitutes. Jacqueline Smith was the most well known but there were others, including a sixteen-year-old girl. He will probably be remembered as a killer of 'prostitutes'. Is the term 'sex worker' likely to be used now, does anyone know?

Or "sexual contact with a child." RAPE! It's RAPE ffs

Well, to be honest - it's not. That's a charge for when there's been some sexual contact but not rape as defined in law.

Not that I'm implying it's not as serious - just that the law, unfortunately & at the present time, has to make the distinction.

Tell you what seriously fucks me off. The amount of detail certain newspapers feel the need to share with their readers about child sex abuse cases. It is enough to say what the charges are - rape, sexual contact, etc, but to go further and be quite explicit (I won't elaborate in case it upsets people, but you know what I mean) about what happened strikes me as unnecessary and disgusting. Nobody (other than the courts & medical professionals) needs to know - and the only people I can think of who would be interested are perverts getting off on it.

PoshPaula yes, I mentioned Peter Sutcliffe too. The police were so fixated on him killing prostitutes, who they saw as a distinct class of women, that they failed to connect his earliest victim with the later crimes, so limiting their own investigation and understanding of the case and delaying his capture.

I did notice in the Ipswich case a few years ago that there were mixed references but many more to 'women then working as prostitutes', which conveyed it was a temporary state and an activity, not an identity.

Op-YANBU.

like others have said I am also annoyed when the press refer to a murder victim as a prostitute.
They would never say a nurse/doctor/social worker etc was murdered. This would not be so prominent as it is with a prostitute, who incidentally could also have been a nurse/doctor/social worker too.

I thought of the Ipswich case too, but remember feeling angry that the women were referred to as prostitutes, like that defined them. I suppose for the media it's a way of categorising (and possibly sensationalising?) a case.
Also completely agree with the OP.

when peter sutcliffe was killing women in yorkshire, the police took a different tone to the murders once he started killing ''nice'' girls, not prostitutes. they barely bothered investigating before then. with the ipswich case, the broadcasters were careful to say 'young women' and explained that they became prostitutes after they became addicted to drugs. they were very careful how they spoke about the victims. i did listen carefully to how they were described and treated.