Competing Discourses about Youth Sexual Exploitation in Canadian News Media

Media holds the power to create, maintain, or break down stigmatizing attitudes, which affect policies, funding, and services. To understand how Canadian news media depicts the commercial sexual exploitation of children and youth, we examined 835 Canadian newspaper articles from 1989-2008 using a mixed methods critical discourse analysis approach, comparing representations to existing research about sexually exploited youth. Despite research evidence that equal rates of boys and girls experience exploitation, Canadian news media depicted exploited youth predominantly as heterosexual girls, and described them alternately as victims or workers in a trade, often both in the same story. News media mentioned exploiters far less often than victims, and portrayed them almost exclusively as male, most often called 'customers' or 'consumers,' and occasionally 'predators'; in contrast, research has documented the majority of sexually exploited boys report female exploiters. Few news stories over the past two decades portrayed the diversity of victims, perpetrators, and venues of exploitation reported in research. The focus on victims but not exploiters helps perpetuate stereotypes of sexual exploitation as business or a 'victimless crime,' maintains the status quo, and blurs responsibility for protecting youth under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Health care providers and researchers can be advocates for accuracy in media coverage about sexual exploitation; news reporters and editors should focus on exploiters more than victims, draw on existing research evidence to avoid perpetuating stereotypes, and use accurate terms, such as commercial sexual exploitation, rather than terms related to business or trade.