A woman who wishes to remain anonymous sent this harrowing account of how she got drawn into prostitution (aka child sexual exploitation) as a 17-year-old.

I grew up in an emotionally abusive household, feeling ignored by my mom and witnessing my dad’s explosive rage (though he was also loving and affectionate when it suited him).

I was bullied by my older brother.

They would both letch at women on TV and my brother would say ‘look at that!’ when he saw a woman he found attractive.

My dad had a breakdown when I was 13. He had spent much of the three months prior to being sectioned persecuting my mom and smashing the house up.

Any semblance of normality had gone.

He was sectioned for a month and when we knew he was coming out of hospital, I overheard my grandfather telling my mom that he was going to take her, my 2-year-old brother and my 21-year-old disabled sister with him. I heard him say that I would have to stay where I was ‘because of school.’ I was 13.

My abusive, 23-year-older brother stayed too.

I lived for nine months with my emotionally abusive, alcoholic father and my brother who hated me. I rarely saw my mom and felt completely unwanted and abandoned.

I started smoking, smoking weed, drinking, truanting, and getting involved with boys. One boy told me he’d dump me if I didn’t let him finger me in a public toilet.

Another time I let him do it in a park, and after he pretended he was going to the toilet but he just left the park without telling me.

I lost my virginity at 14 to a boy my age, and given what came after, our relationship was OK, except for my desperate insecurity causing me to want him with me all the time. I was terrified of being abandoned.

After splitting up with him at 16, I started having lots of sex with different men. A one-night stand with a 25-year-old, another 25-year-old who would pick me up, take me to an empty flat and have sex with me on a mattress on the floor before dropping me home. I knew he had a girlfriend.

Life was going downhill and I kept dropping out of studies, got a job and quit. My confidence was so low and I had no support.

I started hanging around with my cousin and her friend who were 15 and 17 at the time and were both already involved in the sex industry, working on the streets and in brothels. My closest (only) friend and her sister did too.

We started meeting up with boys they knew, going round to flats and ‘banging’ the boys. Which basically meant we would have completely emotionless sex with no kissing with different boys, sometimes more than one per night.

My friend’s sister went to work in a brothel with my cousin and her friend one day, and shortly after that, my friend said she was going to. I cried and begged her not to, because I knew that if she did it, I would too. I felt so alone in the world that to be the only one in that group not doing that when my best friend was, seemed inconceivable.

So age 17 I started working in a brothel. I remember telling myself ‘I give it away, I may as well get paid.’

I remember before I started, I went to an interview in a brothel with my 15-year-old cousin. The middle-aged woman interviewing her asked me if I ‘worked,’ and told me I was ‘really pretty’ and that I’d ‘make loads of money.’ Quite a compliment, right?!

So I joined them, me, three friends and a cousin, 17, 17, 17, 18 and 16.

I worked in three different brothels and a flat. Most of the punters were middle-aged, often married, some were grandad-like. I remember one man chuckling to himself when he noticed that I was looking at my toes while he was having sex with me. It didn’t stop him though.

I did it for 19 months and the last few months I was getting to the end of my rope. I broke down to one punter, he perhaps showed a bit of kindness and I was finding it harder to pretend.

I told him how unhappy I was. He listened and was kind. I remember feeling surprised that he still wanted to have sex with me.

A week after I started ‘working,’ I met a 35-year-old man in a club. He obviously fancied me but I had no interest in him and just thought he was an ‘old man.’

He asked for my number and I was telling myself to say a digit wrong but it came out right.

I didn’t know I could say ‘no.’

He rang me on my mom’s house phone for the next couple of months (I now realise he was grooming me).

He invited himself to visit me in my hometown on Boxing Day. He leant forward to kiss me. I felt no attraction to this man whatsoever but remember thinking that I have sex with men for money who I don’t fancy.

He then instructed me to get in the back of his car, lay me down and raped me.

I didn’t realise this was rape until about 5 years ago.

This relationship went on for two years and for the entire duration of my time in the sex industry. He learnt about what I did and he had no problem with it. I started to see him as my ‘boyfriend.’

I was also raped by another 35-year-old man around that time in a similar way, before I had decided I wanted to be ‘committed’ to the other paedophile abuser.

That’s what they were: paedophile abusers. I was 17, I looked and acted 17. I was vulnerable and they were both 35-year-old men.

All those punters were at least 35, most of them were in their 40s and 50s and I was 17, my cousin was 16 and they didn’t care! Not only did they not care, they obviously liked it!

They exploited our vulnerability. We all became more isolated, mixing only with circles of other girls in the industry and drug-dealing men. We all used drugs and alcohol to escape and I look back on that time in my life and thank God I made it out alive.

I fully agree that selling sex needs to be decriminalised and buying sex should be criminalised. There is no supply without demand. Every girl I met in the brothels had tragic stories, many had drug problems and the punters pay to use their bodies and completely dehumanise them.

Vulnerable women and girls need support and viable alternatives.

I was fortunate that I was never pimped, but I was on a trajectory from a young age of feeling unloved, seeing women treated with contempt and objectified by men, which led to a gradual decline into selling sex. This should never have been an option.

This should not be an option.

I did manage to get out. I left home and moved into supported accommodation. I was able to talk about everything that had happened to me and get the support I needed to build my life.

I still have the emotional scars. I still feel like I ‘don’t like men.’ I had nightmares for years after exiting about men chasing me to have sex with me.

I have emotional flashbacks when something reminds me of that time. I carry shame around it and feel like it’s a huge ‘secret.’ It is a huge secret.

Men shouldn’t be getting away with that. They shouldn’t feel entitled to treat women and girls that way.

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If you’ve been in the sex trade, or have been affected by it in other less direct ways, and would like to share your story anonymously, please see our Share Your Story page.