Barnardo's uses shock tactics for campaign against child prostitution

LONDON - Shocking images of sexually abused young children with aged faces feature in a new advertising campaign from children's charity Barnardo's, as it pushes for the government to reform the law on child prostitution.

The campaign, which breaks today, follows Bartle Bogle Hegarty's controversial work for the children's charity, with one execution showing a baby injecting heroin narrowly avoiding being banned.

In the new campaign, one execution shows a young girl sitting on a sofa as a man, just out of shot, runs his hands through her hair. Her face, however, is horribly aged and miserable looking. A second execution shows a young boy standing next to a urinal, with a man just in shot whose trousers are undone. The caption reads: "Abuse through prostitution steals children's lives".

It is launched in conjunction with the release of a report on child prostitution. Barnardo's is pushing for four new criminal offences to be introduced when the law on sexual offences is changed later this year.

Tink Palmer, principal policy officer at Barnardo's, said: "Children as young as nine are known to have been abused through prostitution. Over the past three years, Barnardo's projects have worked with 2,215 children who have been abused or at risk of such exploitation."

She added: "These children have been entrapped, coerced, beaten and abused. Their childhoods have been stolen -- yet the law does little or nothing to protect them. It is time this changed."

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