Thirty people attended my training last Saturday May 3rd on Youth and the Sex Trade 101 and everyone was excited to learn as much as they could.
We covered a lot of ground in a short three hours starting with the words that youth (especially youth in the sex trade) use to describe the sex trade and how different the words that adults use to talk about the sex trade are. The push and pull factors behind why and how youth get involved in the sex trade was next. In small group discussions, participants reviewed some examples of how youth started in the sex trade and shared the themes they could see.
Next up I talked about recent research and best practices from experienced youth workers and youth voices. After that small groups took on an exercise I developed to explore how to open up conversations between adults and youth on the sex trade and how to shut them down. And just what makes it so hard for youth and adults to talk openly about the sex trade. I’ll post later in the week with the results.
This gave us a good grounding to review what makes a welcoming environment for youth to talk about their experiences in the sex trade and how all youth workers can help youth who are, have been or might be involved in the sex trade.
A lot of workshop participants wanted more time, more exercises, and more information. I think next time I offer the workshop, I’ll make it a whole day.
