In the Name of Protection: Youth Prostitution Policy Reforms in England and Wales

Abstract

This article examines recent policy innovations with regards to young people's involvement in prostitution. It deconstructs the policy framework put forward in the Department of Health/Home Office's guidance Safeguarding Children Involved in Prostitution in order to: (i) articulate how and in what ways the 'problem' of youth prostitution is currently constructed; (ii) lay bare the underpinning assumptions about its key terms of reference (such as 'victim', 'offender' and 'sex'); and, (iii) raise questions about the adequacy of innovating policy by renaming the policy problem to be addressed. This article argues that simply transposing the 'problem' of youth prostitution into a 'problem' of child (sexual) abuse not only occludes the material and social realities that structure youth prostitution, but can have potentially devastating effects on the population that the current innovation is seeking to 'help'.