“Family homes have become prostitute factories.” Speaking to the Lyon newspaper Le Progrès is Laura, a fictitious name behind which lies an educator who has worked for years in transalpine structures dedicated to minors in difficulty. And which often turn out to be places where horror, rather than being healed, is amplified out of all proportion. While Italy discovers, thanks to the “family in the woods” case, the flaws in the foster care system, in France the scandal relating to the Aide sociale à l’enfance (Ase), the public body that deals with the protection of minors, broke out a year ago. And who is now under accusation: for the children taken away from their families without real reasons and also, full of tragedy, for those sent into prostitution right inside the structures that were supposed to protect them. The presidents of the departments of Essonne, Yvelines and Bouches-du-Rhône have been sued for negligence by several families.
Let’s go back to Laura, who worked as a youth worker at the La Tour center in Marennes, south-east of Lyon. On paper, a mixed structure for vulnerable children aged 13 to 16. In reality, a warehouse of fresh meat for the most sordid predators in the area. Real carousels of cars formed around the structure looking for victims to lure: «The cars stopped in front of the gate and left with the girls on board. Once, I saw a man in his sixties who was unashamedly looking for a girl named Sarah. The name didn’t mean anything to me, so he showed me a photo of himself in underwear. She was one of our girls! He must have thought we were a brothel!
There are two criminal parables that intersect here: on the one hand, the alarming surge in child prostitution, the new business of the suburbs; on the other, a social service to help minors which instead ruins minors permanently. The combination of these two dynamics creates a devastating mix.
As regards the first aspect, it is enough to quote the words that Christophe Molmy, head of the Brigade de protection des mineurs of Paris, gave to Le Figaro: in the banlieues, he claims, there would be a shift in crime from drug trafficking to the trafficking of human beings. “Drug trafficking involves a significant investment of money to obtain drugs, while with this type of prostitution all you need is a partner ready to prostitute yourself,” comments Molmy. Lured by the sale of drugs, subjugated, blackmailed with revenge porn, thousands of young people end up in this network, beginning a true descent into hell. Drugged most of the time, these girls are led to meet large numbers of men: one witness spoke of 210 clients in three weeks. Obviously every connection with the family is severed.
In their investigative book, À coeurs perdus: Enquête sur la prostitution des mineures (Mareuil Éditions), Nadège Hubert and Claude Ardid explain how the perverse mechanism is activated: «The victim is entrusted to the social services for the protection of minors (Ase) and placed in a family home or with a foster family for protection. In theory, the system should work. In practice, it became a nightmare. (…) As regards foster families, the ASE simply does not have the resources necessary to carry out the checks necessary to guarantee the quality of care. Unfortunately, it has been found that, within these realities, several minors are victims of further sexual violence, perpetrated by a family member or by another minor entrusted to them. The same situation occurs in family homes: episodes regularly emerge of educators who have sexually abused minors under guardianship, or of minors who have abused their classmates. Over the last 15 years, an even more disturbing phenomenon has grown: protectors now “recruit” directly at the source.”
The numbers in this hell are frightening: beyond the Alps there is talk of around 20,000 minors engaged in prostitution. To give an idea, in Italy there are no precise figures, but it is estimated that the number of prostitutes under 18 is around 1,600/2,000 units. A report to the National Assembly on 1 April 2025 estimated that 15,000 minors are victims of prostitution within the child protection system alone. The average age is between 11 and 14 years.
Warning: one might think that, given that these girls come from difficult backgrounds, early hypersexualisation began before the intervention of social services. But the opposite is often true. According to an evaluation by the Agir pour le lien social et la citoyenneté association, relating to the Alpes-Maritimes region alone, in 80% of cases the sale of the body began during the protection period. Understood? It is contact with social services that makes these girls sexual prey. The State has taken young people in difficulty from their families and returned baby prostitutes.
Michel Amas, a lawyer from Marseille and champion of the fight against the unjustified abduction of minors from their parents, is even more drastic: «In 2021», he tells Panorama, «according to government data, there were 10 thousand minors involved in prostitution coming from ASE structures. These figures are likely to have more than doubled since then. We can confirm that none of these minors were involved in prostitution before being handed over to social workers.” The problem, explains Amas, «derives from the concept of the family home. In France, they are considered “open”, which means that adults cannot enter, but children can leave. As a result, child sexual exploitation networks primarily target young boys through drug trafficking. First they supply them with the drugs, then they sell them. Finally, they force them to sell it. At that point, the young man gets into debt. And to repay these debts, he is forced into prostitution. And this pattern always repeats itself.”
In another book on the misdeeds of French children’s services, Claude Ardid called the ASE “the factory of unhappiness” (La fabrique du malheur, Éditions de l’Observatoire). The author denounces «the increase in child prostitution, not only in the northern districts of Marseille, but also in the surrounding cities: La Ciotat, Aubagne, Istres, Martigues. A new phenomenon is posing an enormous problem: the family homes managed by social services for children are turning into real recruitment centers for girls, the youngest of whom – according to the Marseille Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office – was 11 years old when the police arrested her protectors, who were also… minors!
Nightmares that come from the most desperate margins of our societies? Michel Amas reveals a reality that is closer than one might think: «This phenomenon affects all social classes. The majority of children entrusted to social services come from couples who separate due to difficulties. That is to say, 60% of our cases involve ordinary people who separate due to conflicts. Regardless of social position, when there is a significant conflict between parents, the child is removed from it and handed over to social services. So, I have children of artisans, doctors, civil servants, many teachers and, all in all, very few people living in conditions of poverty. What’s horrible is that the youngest child we defend is 11 years old. Children become prostitutes at 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15.”
And the ogres feast on these distortions: «Simply», continues Amas, «we are not equipped to deal with highly organized networks, similar to Uber. This is mass consumption of children. You can buy a baby with your phone in seconds via Google.” And the human nursery from which to draw is provided by the State.
