Community coaches, sports organisations and parents are being challenged to look out for child sexual exploitation through a series of hard-hitting dummy posters and magazine covers exposing the tricks used against children by abusers.

National charity NWG which helps 14,000 police officers, social work, NHS, community and private sector workers tackle abuse across the UK is using the shocking frontpages to highlight the need to tackle abuse in sport.

The posters have been launched during widespread publicity over child sexual abuse in football, along with an increase in the number of victims coming forward with allegations of non-recent abuse in sport.

The first poster features shocking headlines such as ‘Fast Track to manipulate’ and ‘How to build trust.. and abuse it’.

Kevin Murphy, NWG’s Response Unit lead on CSE in sport, said abuse in sport needs tackling at a lot of different levels and said: “The controversial nature of the campaign might raise eyebrows but we hope to attract attention while communicating our core message – help us stop child sexual exploitation.”

“Although we are aiming to raise awareness of the issues, we would never trivialise the impact on abuse survivors. We are hoping to reach parents, coaches and others to help stop others becoming victims of exploitation. Awareness needs to be all the way down from national level, local level right down to those who play sport in the park.

Mr Murphy said it was important having people trained and competent in recognising what abuse in sport is.  “It is all about having an open and honest culture so if something isn’t right it is easily indentifiable,” he said.  “A lot of the children themselves won’t tell, so it is all about the coaches and parents being aware of the signs.”

He added that abuse in sport often had a long-term effect on individuals who might bottle it up and then, 10-15 years later when it finally comes out, experience an outpouring of grief and emotion.

The culture of sport can often be part of the problem because it is not always conducive to speaking out about problems – coupled with the extreme sensitivity and stigma attached to sexual victimisation.

“We ask ourselves what damage that abuse has done to the person through that time and how it has affected their lives and their ability to participate in sport or society,” he said.    “It can be like dropping a penny in a puddle – the ripple effect can reverberate very wide for generations.”

The initiative comes at a time when there is increasing publicity about historic abuse cases in sport.

*cover photo posed by model with permission.