Words Matter: Why Saying “Child Prostitution” Is a Failure of Journalism

I am writing this as a publisher and an author, but also as someone increasingly disturbed by what I am hearing in mainstream news coverage.

(Content note: discussion of child sexual exploitation and sexual violence.)

Over the past week, I have heard some journalists speaking on national news channels refer to “child prostitutes” when discussing sexual exploitation cases connected to the Epstein network, including in wider political commentary around Morgan McSweeney. Each time it is said, the same damage is done again.

. A child cannot consent to sex.

. If there is no consent, it is not prostitution.

. It is rape.

This is not semantics. It is the difference between naming a crime accurately and placing responsibility, even subtly, on the victim.

My novel Paradigm is a work of fiction, but it is rooted in realities that survivors recognise. It follows a young girl who survives child sexual exploitation and, crucially, lives long enough to see accountability. Writing it required care, restraint, and accuracy, because the harm does not end when the abuse stops. Language is part of that harm.

The phrase “child prostitution” implies agency where there is none. It suggests choice, transaction, and participation. It flattens organised abuse into something transactional and misrepresents what actually occurred. These children were groomed, coerced, manipulated, trafficked, and controlled by adults with power, money, and networks designed to protect themselves.

This abuse was not confined to children alone. Vulnerable adults were also deliberately targeted. Young women just beyond childhood, women facing economic pressure, instability, or dependency, were groomed using the same mechanisms of control. The age of consent was treated as a technical boundary rather than a moral one. Exploitation did not stop at the legal age of consent. It adapted, retaining coercion while gaining plausible deniability

When Paradigm was first discussed, some readers described it as unrealistic, particularly because the perpetrators included people in positions of authority, senior police officers, politicians, and others assumed to be beyond suspicion. That response now feels painfully familiar. Past events, recent disclosures, and the continuing emergence of evidence show that this was never implausible.

On the basis of probability alone, it would be more surprising if abuse on this scale did not involve power. What has been exposed is not isolated misconduct, but a pattern in which wealth, influence, and institutional access were used to lure children into controlled environments designed to silence them. This was not chaos; it was coordination.

When journalists use inaccurate or softened language, even unintentionally, it has consequences. Survivors hear it; families hear it, and future victims hear it. It reinforces shame, blurs responsibility, and contributes to a culture that hesitates to place blame where it belongs: with perpetrators and with systems that enabled them.

To be clear, not all journalists have used this phrasing. Many report on sexual exploitation with care, accuracy, and an understanding of the harm language can cause. That only underlines the point that precise terminology is possible. When it is absent, the failure is not inevitable. It is a choice.

The Epstein case has once again demonstrated how effectively powerful people can be protected, and how quickly attention shifts from what was done to children and vulnerable women to reputational or political fallout elsewhere. Language should not assist that shift.

. We do not describe a child forced to steal as a criminal actor.

. We do not ignore coercion simply because it is organised.

. We should not use language that disguises sexual violence against children or vulnerable adults.

Paradigm does not exist to shock or exaggerate, but to reflect a reality that continues to surface, one in which abuse is enabled by power, shielded by institutions, and sustained by language that fails to name it honestly.

The onus of disgrace rests with those who participated in and sustained this web of exploitation. Calls for better reporting standards should not obscure the central truth. Journalists did not create this harm. It was carried out by adults with money, power, and access, who exploited those advantages to groom, abuse, and control others.

At KMCS Publishing, we are explicit in our editorial position: we use survivor-accurate language, we reject euphemism that obscures harm, and we will not publish or promote work that reframes exploitation in ways that minimise responsibility or shift blame onto victims.