‘They honestly saved my life’: the Victorian project saving girls from the cycle of exploitation and abuse

‘For two years, they helped me receive support for mental health, for housing and I got myself to a stable place.’ Lyanne Morel works in a lived experience advocacy role with Living Free. Photograph: Penny Stephens/The Guardian

Snr Const Nadine Skene was sitting at her desk at a suburban Melbourne police station when she first noticed the pattern. Girls as young as 10 were going missing. Then returning home. Then going missing again. Several had repeated the process more than 50 times within a single year.

Some were couch-surfing, sleeping on the beach or in public toilets. Others were connecting with men on social media. Almost all had some form of contact with the criminal justice system in their time away from home, either as victims or offenders.