'I'VE tried stopping but I get really depressed. There's nothing to do. I can't get a job. The first question you get asked is: why haven't you had a job before? I can't really say I have - I've been a rent boy for x years."

Jay is 21 and for the last six or seven years he's been a prostitute, selling sex at first for drink, then drugs, then just to survive and now because it's the only thing he knows.

He wants to get out, maybe go to college, maybe something with computers, but he knows that to do that he will have to account for the last few years of his life. So he goes back to turning tricks.

"It's hard getting people to give you a chance. Once a prostitute always a prostitute, whether you like it or not. That's what my friend says, and I think she's right," he says.

Jay is one of a number of child prostitutes, both male and female, uncovered by children's charity Barnardo's in Newcastle, in research which has established for the first time that children in the city are selling sex.

Unlike just about every other major city in the United Kingdom, Newcastle has little or no visible street prostitution. There is no red light area, no prostitutes hanging around on street corners. Police were aware of brothels operating in the city, but until now there was no evidence that the scene involved children.

Ady Davies, co-ordinating the Barnardo's Reducing the Impact of Sexual Exploitation (RISE) project, which was launched yesterday, says preliminary research has already identified 21 children either involved in prostitution or at risk of falling into the scene. Once the project gets into its stride, that number is likely to go much higher.

"It is not necessarily about numbers: these are real young people," he says.

"But this is the first time we have definitely been able to say that there are children and young people being exploited through prostitution in Newcastle. We don't know yet the full extent and I doubt that we ever will."

The absence of a street scene means contact between prostitute and punter takes place through graffiti, often scrawled messages asking for or selling sex, the Internet, or through peer groups, where one young person involved in prostitution provides a link both for other children and for punters.

The use of modern technologies also opens up the prospect of abuse happening on an organised scale.

"I have no doubt that the Internet is going to be utilised as a means both to advertise young people and to develop networks for adults to purchase sexual services of young people," says Ady.

The RISE project has been commissioned by the Newcastle Area Child Protection Committee, which brings together social services, health agencies and police, among other agencies.

At this stage, it is primarily an attempt to find out the extent of the problem, but the intention is to follow this with providing services for children involved in prostitution, including help with housing and health issues, and support should they want to leave the scene.

"We're starting to scratch the surface and find out what the extent of the problem might be," says Detective Superintendent Mike Jones, of Northumbria Police.

"There has always been prostitution in brothels, but we have never found any evidence of children being involved before. These are the first indications."

He says in the past the law has operated at the peripheries of prostitution, concentrating on kerb crawling and people living off immoral earnings. But new legislation makes it an offence to pay for the sexual services of anyone under 18, whether it is in cash, in food or even in refraining from physical abuse as a reward.

"They are committing a serious offence now and that may well assist us to find out more about what is going on," he says.

Of the 15 children already identified by Barnardo's as being involved in prostitution, ten are girls and five boys. Most come from dysfunctional backgrounds: nine have either run away from home or are missing from home, and nine either are or have been homeless.

The majority are also drug or alcohol users, 11 are from broken homes and, in a sign of how the scene works, ten know other children who are also involved in prostitution.

Jay became involved in prostitution after he was bullied at school. He started playing truant, and then started drinking, buying a bottle of cider and going to a quiet spot to drink it.

When his parents realised he was drinking, they stopped giving him money, so Jay, who was 14 or 15 at the time, went to one of the places where he used to go to drink his cider, a spot where he had seen men hanging around.

"Eventually this guy started chatting. I guessed he was after something, I'm not that stupid so I asked him for money," he says.

"I hadn't a clue what I was doing, but in a matter of minutes I had a fiver to go and buy some drink. It felt brilliant, I felt really in control. It felt like putting two fingers up to everyone, including my mam and dad.

"It was easy in the end, getting money. The more I did it, the easier it became. Some of the blokes told me about other places to go to meet paying punters; in fact, some of them introduced me to others."

When he was about 16, he met Dom, a 25-year-old who had been a prostitute for several years. Dom let Jay hang out at his flat, watch videos, play computer games and smoke cannabis. Dom also used to let Jay share some of his punters.

After about six months, Dom decided to move down south, and Jay went with him, the two sharing a flat, but the relationship turned sour and in the end Jay was chucked out and he hitched back up north.

"I had nowhere to stay, no money, nothing, so I did the only thing I knew how to do and sold sex, and I still do. I don't want to anymore but I don't know what else to do."

* An online questionnaire as part of the research into child prostitution in Newcastle is available on www.barnardos.org.uk/rise. The RISE project can be contacted on 0191-261 6565.