The artice that Butty linked us to, near the beginning of this thread, is illuminating and addresses many of the queries that are being put here.
This quote, in the last paragraph is so pertinent:
'........ it will take a lot more basic human respect for people who don't necessarily tick the boxes of respectability. But before we can do any of that we have to decide, collectively, to listen.'
Time and again, children/teenagers and young women who are cast adrift, or drift off despite belonging to loving homes, get caught up with men who offer them flattery, money, drugs, a place to sleep, then they feel unable to voice their vulnerability because they might have stepped out of line, or they expect to be judged negatively.
I have watched non-specialist police officers take a female offender's complaint of rape, commenting 'what were you doing there at that time of night, when you should have been back in the hostel?' Well, she wasn't, but the penalty for being a few minutes late is not rape! Would they have asked that question of a 'respectable' young woman who missed her last bus home?
Communities judge wayward girls and close their ears to their problems because they might have seen them drinking from a can on the street, or dressed provocatively. 'They ask for it' we hear time and again. 'Oh, it's that rabble from the children's home.'
Social workers are not allowed to lock girls into care homes. I know of many who have been driving round looking for girls at night, in ther own time, unpaid (done it myself), and they are advised in supervsion with their line manager 'if you carry on worrying and wearing yourself out, you'll get burnt out and be off with stress.' They can't win. The many who really care don't have the power or the resources to solve this on their own.
Yes, police should investigate and social workers should listen, care homes should 'care.' But communities are their eyes and ears, too, and if we see suspicious behaviour or vulnerable children at risk, we could do more to help the authorities. So many witnesses don't want to get involved, such as the neighbours who watched a female offender get thrown out of a car into the road outside my hostel. She was half-dressed, drunk and drugged and had been sexually assaulted. Witnesses who saw the car were seen by staff and asked if they would speak to the police but they walked off. She could describe the (white) men but not their car. They tried to investigate, and other girls speculated who they were, but to no avail. Those men will have done that again, and the authorities will be criticised for not apprehending them.