Under-age prostitution is often linked with images of emaciated girls on street corners. But a report published today reveals an insidious underworld that grooms boys for trade behind closed doors. Women's Editor Arifa Akbar reports.

TO anyone looking from afar, Steven was the luckiest six-year-old on the block.

Showered with gifts by a doting stepfather, and always decked out in the trendiest gear, Steven was the envy of the playground.

No one could have known that he had to pay heavily in kind for his expensive goodies and luxury treats.

For Steven's stepfather was lavishing the rewards on him after submitting him to terrifying sexual abuse, meted out by family and friends. He would have to suffer sex with a string of strangers, and get the latest designer toy for it.

Now 18 and deeply traumatised by the ritualistic abuse which groomed him for selling sex on the streets of Middlesbrough at the age of 14, no one could mistake Steven for anything but a deeply tragic figure.

With gashes and razor cuts across his arms that he inflicted on himself when the memories got too much, his dark years as a rent boy have left him scarred.

The abuse began at the age of six, when a family babysitter assaulted him. From then on, Steven's stepfather began taking him to the houses of friends and family for sexual encounters.

Steven was given the gifts as a reward, but nothing could have made him feel more unhappy. Accepting the treats only left him feeling dirtier and more guilty, but he was too terrified to rebel.

After all, he might get punishment as well as rewards, and if he spoke up about his experiences, he feared the abuse might get worse.

So he suffered in silence, and let the hate fester inside.

By the age of ten, his parents had divorced and his behaviour had become so aggressive and destructive that he was placed in care. It only took a short time after that for Steven to become trapped in the unforgiving world of selling himself to men who want sex with children.

Living with his sister now, he is trying to forget his experience, but the past will not leave him alone. He has suffered anorexia, attempted to take his own life, and cuts and burns himself to feel the kind of control over his own body that he never had as a rent boy.

Sure, he has still got his fancy clothes and mod cons, but he would swap them any-day for a little piece of mind.

He still suffers at the hands of men who pay him for services rendered, but is trying to pull himself out of that spiral of abuse. He has started a college course and is trying to rebuild his confidence, but each step is small, some days more tortuous than others.

Steven's story may be a sad one, but it is by no means unique. There are other boys, both in the North-East and nationwide, who are enduring a similar fate and are too scared to reach for help.

Tink Palmer, policy officer for children's charity Barnardo's , said Steven was one of the more visible victims of a trade that was dangerously hidden behind closed doors, and an almost impenetrable veneer of respectability.

In her year-long study, called No Son of Mine, the Middlesbrough-based project leader became convinced there was more to the under-age rent boy sub-culture than met the eye.

"Boys are lured into flats by older men where they are groomed with illicit goodies such as alcohol and soft drugs, which inevitably lead on to hard," she said.

"After they have got the boys' trust, the sexual abuse will start. The older men will demand a 'trick' in exchange for the treats and before they know it, the boys are performing the 'tricks' on other clients."

The real tragedy is that these boys are even less likely to talk about their tragic lifestyle than girls who fall victim to prostitution. Instead, they stay in a sorrowful state of self-denial, stay strong, keep it all inside.

The study found boys were also being touted on the Internet by these older men, who can be professional and wealthy, often with a separate family home and respectable jobs such as clergymen, police and doctors.

The boys endure all manner of indignities, including being chained up and purchased for the day by an older man in a different part of the country.

But, once they reach puberty they are considered too old and worn out for the paedophile, who prefers to pay for something a bit younger.

After being groomed to earn a living by selling sex at an early age, they are told they are past their sell-by date and kicked out of a world that is deeply perverse, albeit the only one they know.

And then what do they do?