Title: When Support Looks Like a Sentence: How We’re Still Failing Exploited Girls

You know what breaks my heart?

It's seeing girls — young, vulnerable, and exploited — ending up in cells instead of in safe spaces. Girls who needed protection, not punishment. Girls who were victims, but got labelled as offenders.

I’ve worked with too many young women who’ve been through this. Girls caught up in county lines, being moved from city to city, made to carry drugs, weapons, money — scared, groomed, controlled. And instead of asking what happened to you? the system asks, what did you do?

Let’s be real: when a 14-year-old girl is found in a trap house miles from home, the first assumption should never be that she’s there by choice. And yet — it so often is.

Criminalised for Survival

These girls are clever, resourceful, and resilient — not because they want to be in this life, but because they’ve had to be. Many have survived trauma, abuse, neglect. So when someone comes along offering attention, money, protection — even love — it’s easy to get pulled in.

But here’s the thing: exploitation doesn’t always look the way we expect it to. It’s not always obvious. Sometimes it’s wrapped up in friendships, relationships, or promises of escape from home lives that feel just as dangerous as the streets.

So when girls get arrested holding wraps or running lines, when they refuse to snitch or admit what’s really going on — it’s not because they’re criminals. It’s because they’re scared. Because they’ve been groomed. Because they think they’re protecting the only people who’ve ever looked out for them.

Where’s the Support?

Instead of asking how we can help, too many professionals are quick to judge. School exclusions, criminal charges, social care interventions that don’t address the root cause — it all reinforces the same message: your pain doesn’t matter, your story doesn’t count.

And don’t even get me started on the lack of gender-specific support. Girls experience exploitation differently to boys. They’re often pulled in through relationships, through manipulation, through trauma bonds that are hard to break. And yet, most services are still designed with boys in mind.

We Need to Do Better

We need to change the narrative — from blame to understanding. From criminalising to safeguarding. From punishment to protection.

That means:

• Training professionals to spot the signs of hidden exploitation.

• Creating safe, non-judgemental spaces where girls feel believed.

• Listening — really listening — to their stories, even when they’re messy or don’t make sense.

• Offering support that’s consistent, trauma-informed, and built on trust.

Because no girl should ever sit in a cell wondering if this is all she’s worth. No girl should be made to feel like the choices she made for survival are crimes she has to carry forever.

Final Thoughts

These girls are not “bad.” They’re not “lost causes.” They are victims of a system that continues to fail them — but they are also full of potential, strength, and hope.

So let’s stop treating them like problems to be solved and start seeing them for what they really are: young people in need of care, understanding, and the chance to heal.

They deserve that much. We all do.

—Written by Sabrina Hewitt – Speaker, Author, Advocate, and lived experience specialist working with young people affected by exploitation and the criminal justice system.