A new MP who became pregnant at 15 has revealed that she was “groomed” by an older man and now wants to be the voice of “all those women who have children in far from ideal circumstances”.
MP Natalie Fleet said her family struggled when she was a child, eventually becoming homeless before she gave birth to her daughter “at a very young age”.
In an interview with GB News’ Gloria De Piero, which will be broadcast on Sunday, she said: “At the time, when I was 15, I felt full of shame, guilt and responsibility.
“And all I was determined to do was make sure she had as good a life as she would have for any parent of any age. That’s what I was determined to do, I didn’t think about myself or the impact. “
But with her daughter now 23 and “the absolute love of my life,” Fleet said she could look back and think “that wasn’t okay.”
She said: “It was an older man. That was potentially, I mean, now we have labels like hygiene that we didn’t have back then.
“I didn’t know we were having unprotected sex. I was a child and that’s statutory rape. You know, at the time it wasn’t something we were talking about. It wasn’t how I saw myself.”
When she told her daughter what happened, Ms Fleet said she was shocked that she had not been able to find any advice for women in her situation.
She said: “There was nothing. There is no recognition that this happens in the UK.
“And the more research I did, I discovered that there are over 3,000 rape conceptions every year, but there are no charities to support these women.”
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Fleet is now a mother of four and a Labor MP, elected earlier this month to the Bolsover seat represented for decades by Dennis Skinner before being won by the Conservatives in 2019.
In that role, she said she wanted to use her platform to speak out more about women in her situation “and do something about it.”
She said: “I really want to be a voice for all those people, all those women who have children in less than ideal circumstances.”
Adding that her childhood experiences still had an impact on her, including “weekly nightmares”, she said she was still “very excited about what the next Labor government is going to do”.
She said: “Let’s make sure we’re breaking down barriers to opportunity so there are more stories like mine.
“I’m a product of the last Labor government. It wasn’t a perfect government, but it changed my life and was transformative.
“And that’s why it’s worth doing a job where you can’t go to the store in your pajamas anymore, but where you still have a panic alarm in your bag, your own children are potentially at risk, that’s really horrible.
“But when it means you can improve the lives of other kids who aren’t as lucky, that’s amazing.”
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