The government must present, Monday, November 15, an interministerial plan, endowed with 14 million euros, to fight against the prostitution of minors which concerns between 7,000 and 10,000 young people in France. This plan, led by the Secretary of State for Children, Adrien Taquet, will be deployed in 2021 and 2022. It aims to provide the means to apprehend a little-known phenomenon in order to understand, prevent and combat it.
Involving several ministerial departments (Children, Interior, Justice, National Education, Digital, City, Tourism and Gender Equality), the plan has four axes: “raise awareness, inform and know better” the phenomenon, “strengthen identification at all levels” young people involved, “support minors in prostitution” and “prosecute and repress more effectively” clients and pimps.
The phenomenon mainly affects teenage girls aged 15 to 17, who entered prostitution earlier and earlier, between 14 and 15 years for more than half of them, the working group led by magistrate Catherine noted in July. Champrenault in his report which inspired this plan. The trigger may be a runaway, during which the young person needs accommodation and money and has bad encounters.
Sometimes it’s a “lover boy”, a boyfriend who prostitutes his girlfriend. Or photos where she shows herself naked (the “nudes”) published on social networks, which makes her the victim of blackmail, noted this report. Sometimes blinded by love or under the influence, the adolescent does not see herself as a victim. She feels like she’s earning enough to be independent.
“Many teenage girls say they have made the choice of prostitution and not undergo it. They often use the terms of ‘michetonnage’ or ‘escorting’ to talk about it, which, for them, have a more positive value. . They expose their activity using the vocabulary of the world of work (work, contract, recruitment, job interview …) “, thus came under the Champrenault working group.