AALIYAH is one of thousands of girls who have been sexually exploited in this country. She isn't a prostitute, but lost her virginity at the age of 14 after getting involved with unscrupulous men who were happy to take advantage of her.

Now 21, Aaliyah (her name has been changed to protect her identity) has turned her life around and is helping raise awareness about an issue which Barnardo's claims is largely hidden from society.

Her problems started while she was a teenager living with her family in Bradford. "My sister was a couple of years older than me and she'd go out and I'd tag along, going to the park or parties. But my parents didn't approve, they thought girls should stay at home."

To begin with it seemed innocent fun, involving trips to the cinema and hanging out with friends. "We were too young to go to bars, and we didn't have much money. We barely had enough for our bus fares."

But when she started staying out later it led to rows with her father. "Most of my friends were white and seemed to have a lot more freedom and I wanted to hang around with boys, like they did. But my parents just didn't understand.

"If I wanted to go out if it was like, 'where do you think you're going?' because I wasn't allowed outside my back garden."

Aaliyah defied her parents, and she and a friend would sneak off into town. "Guys would pull over in their cars and start talking to us and we used to jump in. I didn't think much of it and I liked the attention.

"We'd go out and meet people and stay out cruising, or we'd go to a yard and hang out. I would never go by myself, just because I was quite shy. I didn't think about safety back then."

As her circle of acquaintances grew, her home life and studies suffered. "I stopped going to school, or if I did go I'd turn up and get my mark and then leg it out the fire exit, because if you didn't turn up they'd phone home. I would go to town rather than go home, because I was scared of what my dad would do."

But one day events went beyond her control. "My sister had gone home and left this guy she knew to look after me. He was in his early 20s and we drove around for a while and he booked a hotel.

"We watched some dvds and one thing led to another and we ended up having sex. I didn't want to, but I was too scared to do anything because he wasn't the kind of person you wanted to cross and I had nowhere else to go."

The next morning he dropped her off as though nothing had happened, but she felt too ashamed to tell anyone. "I never thought I'd end up sleeping with someone at that age, I thought it was just a bit of fun."

By this time her relationship with her parents had deteriorated to the point where she would sometimes sleep rough, rather than face her father's wrath. "When my parents were at work I used to sneak back home and climb in through one of the small windows, get washed, have something to eat and go back out."

It eventually reached the point where Aaliyah was sent to a foster home, but this led to her being abused again.

"I met some lads in Halifax with a friend, and they were really nice to us. We ended up going back to their flat, but it was getting late and we wanted to get back to Bradford. They said the only way they'd take us back was if we slept with them. One of them told me if I screamed he'd get his mate to join in, so I felt under pressure to do it. I was lucky not to get pregnant."

The next morning she was handed some money for her bus fare home. Aaliyah admits that her life was spiralling out of control until she was referred to Barnardo's Turnaround service, which supports young women who are vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse through prostitution.

"By talking to the workers I came to realise that there are so many dangers out there and how I was putting myself at risk," she says. "I could easily have ended up being led into prostitution because of the people I was mixing with."

Aaliyah is now in a stable relationship, has a 12-month-old daughter, and will soon begin working as a volunteer for Barnardo's.

"The people here have helped me so much, they're the reason I'm safe today rather than walking the streets. I know it sounds like a cliché but I want to be able to give something back. I can tell other girls about my own experiences and stop them going down the route I did."

Anne Hunter, children's services manager at Turnaround, says sexual exploitation goes on behind closed doors. "It's not young women hanging around on street corners trying to pick up customers. We're not talking about prostitution."

Barnardo's is launching a campaign this month, called Keeping Safe, which aims to make young women aware of the dangers of getting caught in this destructive cycle. It includes education packs and an interactive cd which can be used by teachers, carers and parents.

Since the Turnaround service was set up in 1995, it has helped 700 young people seriously at risk from sexual exploitation and talks about the dangers involved to a further 1,500 girls in local schools each year.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg, and when you consider these figures are for the Bradford area alone, they represent a large and highly disturbing picture nationwide.

"It's hard to say whether it's getting worse, but I personally feel it's becoming more hidden," says Ms Hunter. "I think there are more complex ways that these young people are being exploited."

Ms Hunter says there are a number of tell-tale signs when someone is at risk.

"There's a combination of factors that come together. They've been excluded from school, they have problems at home and they start using drugs. It's usually children who've been marginalised and socially excluded.

"But having said that, we've had people come through the door who you wouldn't think could be at risk. But if they're not aware of the issues and someone approaches them at a bus stop who looks presentable then they might not appreciate the risks."

The Turnaround team works alongside the Children's Society, police and health organisations to identify those most vulnerable, including girls as young as 10.

"The younger ones tend to be those who go missing and when they're picked up we explain to them the risks of going missing. This is important because young people sometimes do things without realising that it might put them in danger."

The team's work, Ms Hunter explains, is to prevent the most vulnerable in society getting lost in the system. "If a young person goes missing from time to time, or gets into trouble at school this doesn't necessarily mean they're being sexually exploited. But it does means they are at risk."

She says that once someone has been identified as being vulnerable, trained staff then try and help them by offering practical advice on how to avoid putting themselves in danger.

"Those exploiting young people are using different ways to get to them. They will give them presents, they'll give them mobile phones, they'll threaten them and abuse them.

"It's a bit like a domestic violence situation, where someone becomes so disempowered that they aren't capable of reaching for help," she says.

"We're talking about children who haven't actively chosen this path. Somebody has coerced them and used and abused them and taken away their rights as children."

She believes it makes the work of organisations like Barnardo's all the more important. "I don't know how many people this happens to, but I know it's happening and it's a vicious cycle.

"But we can change that and we are – as proved by young people like Aaliyah who are being pulled into this destructive cycle but managing to get out."

Details of the Keeping Safe pack are on www.barnardos.org.uk or
0113 393 3200.