LeeAnne M. Richardson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Wealthy men soliciting underage girls for sex. Girls lured to expensive homes by promises of good-paying jobs. Captains of commerce and heads of state reveling in debauchery. Officials looking the other way. In the four-part series, investigative journalist W. Stead graphically detailed the ways that wealthy Victorian men procured young girls for sex.
Ironically, Stead was the only one who ended up in jail. Despite β or because of β the attempted censorship, copies sold well above their cover price. Thousands waited outside newspaper offices for their chance to buy each new installment. Those who could get their hands on a copy learned about how women recruited young girls, and how the authorities who knew about it failed to intervene. Stead interviewed women who explained how they enticed girls to enter the homes of wealthy men with promises of meals, money and jobs.
Stead interviewed some of the men who paid for the girls. They assured him that the maidens willingly β sometimes eagerly β consented. The victimized girls told a different story: They were lured with the promise of a better life.
They had no idea that the employment agencies they used were actually fronts for prostitution. But Stead points out that, unlike the mythic narrative, which required the sacrifice of seven virgins every nine years, modern London was witnessing an exponential number of girls being sacrificed each day. Nor did they ever face criminal prosecution. As a journalist, Stead refused to reveal his sources.
