How Grooming Older Teens Happens – and Why We Are Ignoring the Problem

Grooming older teens is a problem that doesn’t seem to get as much conversation as the grooming and abuse of younger children.

So often, we discuss child protection, and we instantly conjure up images of primary-aged children.

But the reality is that children of primary school age are not the only age group of children who will be targeted by groomers for the eventual aim of sexually assaulting them.

Global research suggests that those aged 16-24 years old are more likely to be victims of sexual violence than any other age group.

In the UK, data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales highlights that young women aged 16-19 are significantly more likely to experience sexual assault compared to other age groups.

These statistics underscore the urgent need for targeted interventions and support mechanisms for young women in these age brackets.

But as a society, what are we doing to highlight this issue with this particular age group, especially when society considers that children in this age group are adults and should probably know better?

In this post, we will explore the ‘grey areas’ that come with being 16-18 years old and how these factors affect how teenagers are targeted by groomers.

The Legal Grey Area: Grooming Teens Aged 16–17

In the UK, and indeed, most countries around the world, you are legally an adult from your eighteenth birthday.

However, also under UK law, you can do a lot before you reach this coveted age where you’re technically an adult.

For example:

• The age of sexual consent in the UK is 16 years old
• You can also vote, get married with parental permission, and join the army at 16
• You can drive at 17

It therefore feels that young women between the ages of 16 and 18 years are in a grey area of legally being children but being trusted with a lot of adult responsibilities.

The age of 18 is another grey area that I’ve experienced when it comes to grooming older teens. It’s as if society thinks that you grow up and develop a whole new personality on the day of your 18th birthday.

But the truth of the matter is this: you’ve barely grown at all from the previous day when you were seventeen and legally a child.

Yet, at the age of 18, you’re no longer a child.

From a child protection point of view, you aren’t a child either.

Services aimed at children dramatically diminish when a young person turns 18, and often, there is little, if any, transition to adult services.

Safeguarding and Older Teenagers

From a safeguarding point of view, children certainly seem to end up abandoned once they hit 18 years old.

They are no longer fitting the criteria for child protection and likely don’t fit the criteria for being a vulnerable adult and, therefore, according to society, at least, are able to deal with issues such as sexual violence without appropriate protections to turn to.

One of the major points that I want you as the reader to come away with from reading this blog (and hopefully my book!) is that you are a vulnerable adult when you are 18, as much as you were when you were a vulnerable child when you were 17.

And just because in the eyes of the law you are now an adult, and you don’t match the criteria of being a vulnerable adult from a safeguarding point of view, does not mean that you suddenly don’t need protecting. If anything, you probably need more protection than you think you do at this age.

It’s for this reason that as an adult in my mid-30’s, I feel I know less than I did at the age of 18.

Why Groomers Target Older Teens

Because we get this sense of freedom at the age of 18. We can:

• Drive
• Legally consent to sex
• Buy alcohol
• Vote
• Buy cigarettes
• Pay social security

We can do all these amazing and ‘adult’ things, but what we don’t necessarily have is the life experience or the life skills to be able to pause and see what is going on around us and often to us.

What we don’t always have is people paying as much interest to us now that we don’t fit the criteria for child protection. And this makes us extremely vulnerable, especially to crimes that fall under the violence against women and girls umbrella.

But that’s all very well for people who are now adults as they’ve passed their 18th birthdays.

What about those women and girls who are between 16 and 18 years old?

It’s when we consider this age group in more depth that we realise just how precarious this stage is for young women. This age group is often targeted by predators who exploit our vulnerability.

Teenagers aged 16-17 are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse because they are seen as more independent by society but often lack the maturity and support to protect themselves fully.

And I’m not saying that 16–17-year-olds are immature.

Far from it.

But what I am saying is that most 16–17-year-olds cannot and will not be able to spot the signs of grooming until they are experiencing sexual violence.

Between the ages of 16 and 17 years old is the key age when grooming older teens can often occur, with perpetrators taking advantage of the blurred lines of legal adulthood and societal expectations of these teenagers.

It’s with this in mind that I have no problem arguing that teenagers in this age group need better protection and education when it comes to grooming older teens and awareness of what constitutes sexual violence.

Why Grooming Older Teens Often Goes Unnoticed

One of the significant challenges in addressing sexual assault and grooming in this age group is the societal perception of 16 and 17-year-olds as being close to adulthood and, therefore, less in need of protection.

This perception is reflected in the legal system and social services, which often do not extend the same level of protection to 16 and 17-year-olds as they do to younger children.

This gap in protection is a serious issue, as it leaves young women without the necessary support and safeguards, making them easy targets for predators.

We know that 16-17-year-olds navigate a strange realm in society; they are over the age of consent but are not yet of legal majority age.

How We Can Protect Older Teens from Grooming

Having got this far in this post, you’re likely asking yourself what we can do to prevent perpetrators from grooming older teens.

Acknowledge the Problem

The first step to tackling the issue of older teens being groomed is acknowledging the problem.

By acknowledging that grooming older teens happens, and that it’s not their fault, we can start to put prevention strategies in place.

We need stop brushing the issue off with the thought process that older teenagers ‘should known better’ or are ‘old enough to make their own choices.’

Those kinds of attitudes just hand groomers more power, while leaving young people even more isolated.

Stop Using Age as a Justification

We need to stop pretending that once someone turns 16, 17, or 18, that they magically know everything about the world and are suddenly immune to being manipulated or abused.

Spoiler: they don’t, and they aren’t.

We need to stop using someone’s age as a justification that they ‘should have seen it coming’ or ‘recognised the red flags.’

This mentality feeds into victim-blaming culture, which doesn’t help either the individual victim, or the wider society.

Education in Schools, Colleges, Workplaces, and NEET Programmes

We need to get much better at education and educating children and adults alike about grooming and violence against women and girls.

And no, I don’t just mean a one-off school assembly with a PowerPoint and a police officer who uses outdated slang, or a teacher whose speciality doesn’t relate to VAWG.

I mean honest, real-world conversations about grooming, coercive control, and what exploitation actually looks like.

Teenagers are smart.

They can handle this information.

What they can’t handle is being left in the dark and then blamed for not seeing something that no one taught them to spot.

This type of information needs to be accessible wherever teenagers are. This includes:

• Schools
• Colleges
• Workplaces (including apprenticeships)
• NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) programmes

Better Understanding of Safeguarding Processes

Next, there’s the issue of support services.

At 18, so many protections just disappear overnight.

One day you’re a vulnerable child, and the next…you’re an ‘adult.’ And you’re expected to navigate the world with no help.

We need proper, joined-up safeguarding that doesn’t suddenly end on your birthday.

Transitions between child and adult services do exist, but they need to be continually reviewed to ensure that older teens don’t get stuck in an unsupportive no man’s land.

Discussing Positions of Power and Trust

We also need to start talking more about positions of power and trust.

Older teens are often groomed by people who are older, more experienced, and seen as respectable members of society.

This can include teachers, youth leaders, coaches, and people in workplaces.

Perpetrators of grooming are rarely random strangers on the internet. Although a number of children and teenagers are groomed online, we need to challenge the myth that grooming always looks like something out of a dodgy Netflix documentary.

It doesn’t.

Often, a groomer just looks like someone being ‘nice’ or ‘helpful’ to a teen who feels a bit lost.

Listening and Believing

And finally?

We listen.

We believe them.

We create space for them to talk; without judgement, without minimising, and without asking why they didn’t say something sooner.

Because trust me, they probably tried to say something sooner.

Or they wanted to.

They just didn’t know if anyone would care. On average, it takes a child 8 attempts to report abuse before they are listened to.

Summary of Statistics about Grooming Older Teens

We’ve covered a variety of statistics within this post. Here’s a summary of them to reinforce how much of a problem grooming older teens is:

• 16-24 years old are more likely to be victims of sexual violence than any other age group
• 16-19 are significantly more likely to experience sexual assault compared to other age groups
• It takes a child 8 attempts to report abuse before they are listened to
• People are legally children until their 18th birthday

Final Thoughts

Groomers and those who commit sexual violence are drawn towards this age group because there is often the victim-blaming culture played that because the young person is above the age of consent, they ‘should have known better.’

But to be entirely blunt, no one ‘should have known better.’ Grooming and sexual violence are disgusting acts of power and control over another person.

No one should ever be made to feel or be told that they ‘should have known better’ and should have seen the warning signs or what was happening to them based on their age.