Grace Banks from FiLiA in conversation with Kendra Houseman

Grace: Hello, I'm Grace Banks and I'm one of the FiLiA team. And I'm lucky to be sitting with Kendra Houseman from Out the Shadows. And she's going to be talking about gang culture and child exploitation at the 2018 FiLiA conference. But today she's going to give us a bit of a flavour of what we can expect from that. Have you ever been to a feminist conference before? 

Kendra: Nope. And if you'd asked me, would I attend one? The answer would be no, because I don't think I'm a feminist, but my sons tell me that I am and feminists tell me that I am, but I don't think I am. I think I'm just a woman who'd had to get on with life. If that makes me a feminist, then maybe I'll go to the conference and come back a big feminist.

Grace:  It's going to be interesting to see if you've changed your answer at all after the conference.

 Kendra: If the question was, do I like powerful women with powerful stories? Yes.

Grace: Tell me about the work that you do currently around gangs.

Kendra: I work in Kent with any young person and identify the risk of gangs or child sexual exploitation, and that can range from victim to perpetrator. If you want to look at it like that. So I work with any young person who's identified as being in a gang and those around that young person to protect them from being exposed to gang culture. Then I work with girls that are already exposed to child sexual exploitation. And then I work with the young people around them children to keep them safe and to educate the parents around that. And the main part of my main job is to keep young people in mainstream education because once they get permanently excluded and get sent to alternative learning, like a PRU (pupil referral unit) their chances, I believe personally, of going on to university or further learning is hindered. And I think that education is key. So keep your children in school is what I think. 

Grace: So I know that you're going to expand on this when you speak at conference about your own personal experience, particularly so, but without too many spoilers, could you give us a bit of an indication as to your kind of personal experience in this arena?

Kendra:  Not giving away too many spoilers. That's hard isn't it? Okay. So I grew up in inner city council estate and was exposed to gangs and child sexual exploitation around me all my life. Gangs was completely normal. It wasn't something that was in a film. It wasn't something that other people spoke about. It was there on my doorstep. You know, gang members were my friends and, and people were exploited around me. I saw that. And I won't go into too much detail now.

One experience and what I want to talk about in Clapham and in Brixton, in Southwest London. My mum had really poor mental health. When I come home one day, I was about 13. I'd been involved in gangs in some ways, not heavily involved. And my mum was crying at the table and I said to her mum, what you crying for? And she said that she couldn't pay the rent, rent for that month. And she hadn't paid the rent the month before. 

I didn't really understand that. So I said, what does that mean? And she told me that we would have to move and we'd have to move out of area. She said, Thornton Heath. 

Now what my mum didn't realise is by taking me out of area, she would put my life at risk because I would be caught slipping out of my area. I couldn't even go to the shop out of my area. So how was I going to move? 

So then what gangs do is they bend your boundaries. That's what gangs and exploitation does. They take everything that you say you would never do and then get people to do them things they say they'd never do. So I went out to my friends and I say friends, they weren't, my friends. I went out to the people who I thought were my friends and said, oh, my mum can't pay the rent, blah, blah, blah. And so they give me an offer. They said that I could go country. Go country is what professionals call county lines. But in London, it's not called that it's called going country. And basically county lines involve taking drugs, weapons, whatever, going on a train and taking them to rural areas like coastal areas and places that other people can't get to.

And they use really young children because they think that people in the trains won't stop them and they won't stop them. So I was taken into a room with some older girls and they covered me. They covered my body in drugs. So down my socks, down my trousers, I was given crack cocaine and heroin.

I was a very young, 13-year-old. I looked, if you see pictures of me, I looked very, very young. I mean, my childhood was over a long time ago, but I looked very young. And so I've got these girls, they're taking my clothes off. I had on like jogging bottoms and a t-shirt and they've got pink, like pink jeans and making me look like a proper nice girl. I can't explain it. Like, not like a gang girl. So taking my clothes off, I’m embarrassed, I'm trying to cover my body. They don't care. Make me put on these girl’s clothes. They try to take my trainers. Now I argued that I was like, no, not my trainers. So let me keep my trainers. They put drugs everywhere. They give me a backpack. And packed it with heroin. They packed it out with drugs and then they produced the two sort of oblong packages. And then the girl walked over and she just started pushing them down my knockers. I was like, well, what are you doing? She said, oh, you need, you need to plug them.

You need to plug them. And I knew what plugging was, plugging was putting them internally. So I started freaking out. I was like, no, please, please, please, please. And they sort of allowed me not to, they didn't make me, they made me put them in my knickers and then they gave me a phone and they made it very clear to me when I went outside the boys said to me: You lose that phone, Blondie don't come home because if you lose the phone that's connected to a county line, if you lose a county line phone, and you're dead. The numbers on that phones are worth thousands of pounds. So you don't come home. 

And then he said she doesn't look young enough. So they took me back in the room and they got my hair and made it into two bunches. They put my hair up in two bunches. I looked about 11 years old. And then they walked me to Clapham junction train station and sent me to Margate, you know? And, um, you can read about it in my blog, but they sent me the Margate and I'm sitting on this train, sweat pouring down my face. I don't know what's going on. 

When I get off, it's 11 o'clock at night. There's nobody there. There's no other adults around. I get off and I've got a bit of paper in my hand has got the number of a license plate of a car I've got to go and find. So I go into the car park and there's this car with three blokes in and I had to go with them for a couple of days while they tested the drugs, I come back.

And when I got back, the man, the person had done it for, he gave me the money for two months’ rent. So I went home. Told my mum I've got the money, got my mum's rent book and paid mum's rent. 

And that was pretty much what is like for me when I was younger.

It's happening now my story is not unique. I'm working with young people, it's not, it's not unusual. It might be unusual to certain people's ears, but it's not unusual. Like that is not, that's not a big story.

I work with kids that happens to it's still going on 

Grace: Think the perception is that when you think about gangs, you immediately assume it's boys and lads intimidating. You know, that's our perception of them. We don't necessarily understand what girl’s roles in gangs are.

Kendra: Gangs are. Yeah. Girls in gangs is it? I think it's something that people still shy away from because it's kind of awful to think that a female can be as destructive as a male, but they can be.

And there's a fine line. I keep saying it, between perpetrator and victim and, and there were times in my life that I have been a victim and a perpetrator and I fully accept that. But then there's children and young people that I work with that they need to see that too, that you can be both.

If you create victims, then you are a perpetrator, but you can also be a victim yourself. And it's empowering for the girls to know that. But girls in gangs is so hidden. It's so secret. They can't get the help. They can't get a support. 

 In Kent there's no get-out policy for gang members. So if I get a female who she says Kendra, yes, I'm in a gang. And? But there's no get-out policy in Kent for a child in a gang it’s horrific.

Grace: Can you explain the connection between gang culture and child sexual exploitation? 

Kendra: When there's gangs, there will always be child sexual exploitation. If there’s child sexual exploitation (CSE) they won't always be gangs. So you can have child sexual exploitation done by peer on peer older or whatever.

But when there's gangs, there will always be an element and it doesn't just affect girls. It does affect boys as well. The problem with the girls is, they've got no one to talk to really like, how do they get help? Because we're still using words like child prostitution around these young people.

I've read paperwork from six weeks ago that said, you know, there's this 12-year-old, girl's got an older boyfriend. How can she have an older boyfriend? Is it rape? Like there's nothing. There was a mother they said she allowed this male to have sex with a 14-year-old daughter.

No, it was rape taking place. So the girls don't know that their risk of CSE because the language is not good. We need to change the language around it. 

Grace: I've heard you talk about language and changing that, which is a really big kind of, part of your ethos

Kendra: Yes. I just think that there's two things: using the words like child prostitution or ‘she’s streetwise’ or ‘she's experienced’ you know, I've seen, I've seen paperwork for myself as a young person saying she’s streetwise. What does that even mean?

What does that mean? Think about that as a professional if you see that. or ‘she's that type of girl she does kind of things’ That's ridiculous. They’re children. 

And I want to change the language absolutely. How many times are we going to say that a child is at risk of CSE? We can't keep saying that.

Once the act takes place, they are a victim. Let's get rid of that. If there's no sexual act taking place, they're at risk. I accept that. But once sex has taken place, they're no longer at risk. They're a victim. And if they're a victim of CSE, then we need to start looking at trafficking and laws coming into place around that. It needs to be hyped up more. We can't keep talking about all these young girls at risk of CSE. Let's talk about the ones that are victim of CSE. 

Grace: And this connects again to the idea of awareness around consent. 

Kendra: Yes. So I started the Keep Me Safe program where I work now. 

I asked 60 young people, boys and girls what consent was. 59 of them did not know fully what consent was. In saying that a lot of professionals don't really know what consent involves

So I worked and developed a program around all the females in my school, around the Keep Me Safe, which was talking about consent, healthy relationships, keeping themselves safe sexually because my goodness, these girls were sleeping around and didn't even know how to keep themselves safe.

They didn't know about where to get protection. 

The only problem with that is once I started teaching my female about what consent was it opened up a can of worms around mental health. I had a couple of girls who really got poorly with mental health when they found out what was happening to them. They were saying to me, Kendra, I don't want to sleep with them, but the boy said that because they give us weed, we have to.

When we looked at consent and they fully understood consent, they then become poorly with mental health. But there's no fast track to mental health services for victims of CSE. It’s not recognized like that. So if a child realises they are the victim of CSE. They don't get no help immediately. They're go on a waiting list for a year.

So, you know, it's difficult, it's very difficult with how you help these young people. 

Grace: So in terms of solutions, how do you feel about police and social services? How effectively do you feel they're dealing with the scenarios? How aware do you think they are? 

Kendra: I'll be fair. I'll put it out there that they're understaffed. So I think we're all going to have to say that. Anyone who is asked that question has to be fair and say they're understaffed, but there's so much more that needs to be done because we need to recognise that girls involved in gangs and CSE are in such grave danger.

We need to pull together and say as a problem. So for the area of Kent that I live in, in fact, there is still people in the area that says we're not at risk of gangs and CSE. That's crazy. That's almost given the gangs permission to rape our females.

We need to say no. Yes, hands up. We've got a problem. We need to do something about it. So we can't have any solutions until we come together. Short term solutions, educate everyone, educate the dinner, lady, educate the road crossing people, educate everyone for the signs, looking out for CSE.

And if you see that girl with the big earrings and a load of makeup and a short skirt and your roll your eyes, she's that girl. No. Stop doing that. Go speak to that girl, you know, and see what's going on for that girl. Why is she walking down the street? instead of going God, why is her parents letting them out at 11 o'clock at night. Challenge that. Let’s confront that. 

For solutions, we need to start as a society taking responsibility and being held accountable for our young people.

Grace:  These aren't problems that just in the south of England are they? 

Kendra: No, I've been to Birmingham. I've been everywhere. Everywhere I've gone the problems no different there's different language. So in Birmingham gun culture is a worse problem than it is in Kent, but there’s still murders taking place in Kent. You know, there's still people getting killed.

Exploitation is here because we're a seaside area and it's easy for county lines to bring girls down, but it's everywhere and you’d be insane to think it’s not. 

Grace: Can you explain to me about the misconception that there are some young people who are more at risk than others?

Kendra: So I get asked this all the time.

People say to me, but who is at risk of CSE and gangs? So here it is: Everyone. Your child right now. I don't care what job you've got, what school to go to. They can go to a grammar school. You could be living in one bedroom, flat sleeping on the mattress. Every child is at risk of gangs and CSE. Every female and male is at risk.

Gangs are not exclusive. You don't have to be certain type of person to join a gang. They don't hand out a list, a checklist of what you've got to do. It doesn't work like that. They will target anyone that has got something missing. Anything that a gang can replace, they will replace. So every child is at risk.

Who's more likely to risk obviously, definitely children within the care system, because they've already got less family. So gangs are happy to step in there. Who's at risk? The children whose parents aren't communicating. 

They always blame single parent families. People go, oh, children, single parent families are involved in gangs.

Hang on a minute. If mum and dad are communicating and talking and they both know where their child is. That's obviously going to help. There's lots of, there's lots of things that can keep a child safe and puts them at risk, but who is at risk? My child is at risk; you know? 

Grace: Yeah. I thank you for everything that you do in terms of using your life experience. It's just so amazing to try and create change. I know that everyone's going to be blown away by you at the conference, because I've heard you talk about your life experience. But also, I know that you've got a campaign up your sleeve, to try to raise more awareness about the conference.

Kendra:  I'm excited about this. So we're recording this today, but by the time this comes out, we would have been into it for a few days. I hope so. So on the 10th of September, I want everyone, everyone to go on social media. And put a call out for a female that there they're proud of that they care about, they're worried about, I want everyone to go online and write: She makes me whatever it is. So for example, for me, it would be for my daughter, I'd write, she makes me feel safe then #FiLiA2018. Put it everywhere. Like they need to come and look at my blog or Twitter or find me somewhere. They need to come and find it. And then you'll see what I'm talking about. And what basically on 10th of September it is also national suicide awareness day, which is something that's very close to my heart. Something very personal to me. And I think the link between gangs and CSE children not being recognised into adult life is a clear link. You're not being recognised now in adult life. So, this is what I wouldn't ever want to do.

 I want them to call out a female. She makes me – anything you like - she makes me safe. She makes me happy. She makes me proud. She makes me worried. And on the 10th of September, at least I can know that some females out there will get a message said about them that will make them feel empowered.

But there’s a twist. Once everyone's put their messages out there and you don’t only got to do it once you can do five. I'm going to do 10 different females. You can put as many as you want. The person that gets the most shares on that day will win two tickets to the FiLiA conference 2018 with me. 

You can come along. You can come for one day. You can come for the two days, but anyone who gets the most shares will come to that and be part of that experience. 

Grace: And we really don't want to miss your talk.

Kendra: No one needs to miss me talking.

Grace: It's really amazing to hear, Kendra there's wonderful powerhouse talking about her life's experiences, it’s really fantastic. 

Kendra: They've called it Failed by the State and I'll let you be the judge of that. Okay. 

Grace: Thank you so much for joining us, Kendra.