Sir, – I was disappointed by the tone of your coverage of court proceedings relating to a 15-year-old victim of sexual abuse (“Troubled teenage girl at risk of sexual exploitation placed in secure care”, Online, August 25th).
On the basis of your own reporting, this child has been raped, multiple times, by a number of unidentified men. To describe this as “highly sexualised behaviour” on her part, and to refer to her “dressing inappropriately”, “engaged in risk-taking behaviour with men on social media”, “having exchanged sexual favours . . . for drugs” and being “coked out of it” is disgraceful. Whatever terms used by the victim herself or by counsel for the Child and Family Agency, your newspaper does not have to reproduce them as if they were a neutral description of the events, in such exacting detail.
This is not, as the article suggests, “prostitution”; this is the physical and sexual abuse of a child.
I trust The Irish Times will be equally diligent in its reporting of whatever attempts are made to track down the men who abused her, and I hope the poor girl gets the necessary treatment to help her overcome her addictions and trauma. – Yours, etc,
ALAN EUSTACE,
Marino,
Dublin 9.