Resilience and Agency

Abstract

As the literature considered in Part I indicates, children and adults involved in selling sex in the UK are still a largely ‘stigmatised marginalised and criminalised group’ (Shaw and Butler 1998:190). Society holds contradictory perspectives, perceiving those involved as ‘sad’ or ‘bad’, ‘victim’ or ‘criminal’. Legal and moral responses are often based on those perceptions, not on an understanding of the structural disadvantages affecting many who become involved in selling sex, or on childhood experiences of adversity and maltreatment which impact on identity and choice. Polarised and recurring themes of victimhood and agency are evident in the perception and treatment of both the children and adults involved (Pearce 2009, Sanders et al. 2009, Dodsworth 2012).

‘You’ve got to get past what they’re doing, past the drugs they’re on and find the person inside.’

(Amy)