CYP Now - Participation In Action: Youth-led workshops highlight exploitation and violence risks

A group of young women, who have experienced exploitation or violence, are raising awareness of the issues by educating their peers and professionals.

Provider Volunteering Matters

Name Women Against Sexual Exploitation and Violence Speak Up (known as WASSUP)

The Women Against Sexual Exploitation and Violence Speak Up (known as WASSUP) group was born out of a domestic abuse support project for migrant families in Suffolk run by charity Volunteering Matters.

A number of young people from those families, who were predominantly female and of black and minority ethnic heritage, were being supported by "volunteer peer mentors".

The girls began to discuss the difficulties faced by girls in their communities to access safe pathways out of abusive situations because of issues such as language barriers, inadequate services and a lack of understanding from practitioners, so they set up WASSUP as a peer support group in 2012.

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