Children who are sexually exploited must be acknowledged as victims of violence.

Today, children subjected to sexual exploitation risk being caught in a system where interventions are based on interpretations of their behavior rather than their exposure to violence. At the same time, children risk falling through the cracks between different services. Without coordination, support becomes fragmented, despite the need for continuity, relationships, and long-term assistance.

Changing how we talk about children subjected to sexual exploitation is therefore not just about language, but about the support children actually receive. If we do not correctly understand their vulnerability, we cannot provide the right interventions.

Last week, the Government presented a new national 10-year strategy against men’s violence against women, domestic violence, prostitution, and human trafficking. These ambitions are important—but children subjected to sexual exploitation risk continuing to be overlooked.

Nearly one in ten girls (9%) between the ages of 15 and 19 has been subjected to sexual exploitation in exchange for compensation (ChildX Sifo 2023). Meanwhile, the 2023 municipal survey “Out of Vulnerability” shows that these children are rarely identified by the responsible authorities. 92% of the country’s municipalities report that they identify a single child victim less than once a year, even though nearly every tenth teenage girl is affected.

In the project Identify More, we at ChildX meet both young people and professionals to discuss sexual exploitation for compensation. Time and again, we see the same pattern: children who are exploited are rarely identified as victims of crime. The problem is not only that the adult world fails to detect the children, but a systematic failure to understand their situation as exposure to violence.

Children are met with control and attempts to change their behavior, instead of protection and support directed at what is causing the harm. When the focus shifts to the child’s behavior, the responsibility is transferred from the perpetrator to the child.

A lack of proper treatment also risks reinforcing guilt and shame and reducing trust in adults.

How we speak matters. Sexual exploitation is sometimes described as self-harming behavior, which risks shifting the focus from the violence and the perpetrator to the child, and missing children who do not identify themselves with that image.

Children do not always tell their stories themselves. Shame and fear mean that many carry their vulnerability for a long time. At the same time, they encounter adults every day, but instead of seeing potential signals of violence, we often interpret what we see as problems within the child.

If we are to stop overlooking these children, measures are required at several levels:

• Children in sexual exploitation must be recognized as a group in national guidelines and legislation, with the right to protection and support based on their exposure to violence.
• The Government must commission the National Board of Health and Welfare to develop national guidelines for how these children should be identified and treated—where the focus is on the violence, not the child’s behavior.
• Work on early detection must be strengthened so that adults are given the tools to see signals, ask questions, and act in time. It cannot be up to individual municipalities to decide whether support should be available.

As long as we continue to understand exploitation as a behavioral problem, we will also continue to miss the children. It is not a behavioral problem. It is violence.

Ida Östensson, Secretary General, ChildX
Mathilda Hofling, Project Manager Identify More, ChildX
Philippa Söderberg, Project Manager Identify More, ChildX