authority care, with perpetrators actively targeting residents’ units and services.135 Perpetrators target [girls and] women according to real or perceived vulnerability and accessibility – they can also target women who they think will be less credible to services and in a court of law.136 Victim safeguarding and support Risk assessments have provided frameworks for practitioners to identify if a child may be at-risk, or in fact already a victim, of child sexual exploitation. The lists below have been reproduced from part of the Newcastle Safeguarding Children Board (NSCB) and the Newcastle Safeguarding Adults Board’s (NSAB) risk assessment to help frontline practitioners identify cases of sexual exploitation of children, young people and adults at risk.137 Such frameworks highlight an array of vulnerability indicators that can help identify children who are vulnerable to exploitation.138 Vulnerability factors:
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isolation, lack of strong social networks
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friends/peers are victims of sexual exploitation
breakdown of family relationships lack of engagement/inconsistent engagement with support networks (i.e. often misses appointments) history of local authority care history of abuse (including as a child) low self-esteem susceptible to grooming bereavement or loss dependency on alleged perpetrator(s) substance misuse/dependency 67
