Minding the Teens.(sexual assault against fashion models)

Fifteen-year-old Maja was probably never going to make it as a supermodel. But the pert blonde had something special that caught the eye of a model scout in her hometown of Ljubljana in Slovenia. Massimo Mandelli, owner of the Milan-based Flash Model Management, offered her a chance to leave her country--where unemployment hovers at 14 percent- -for the glamorous life of the runways in the Italian fashion capital. Neither Maja nor her father could say no.

The glamour faded fast. Less than a month after Maja arrived in Milan last fall, her agent took her to a hospital, where doctors discovered internal injuries and an infection resulting from a violent gang rape. Maja told investigators she had been attacked by three men in a discotheque bathroom. She also said that it was not the first time she had been sexually assaulted in Italy. According to the police report, she had engaged in "sex with multiple partners on many occasions," but she said she was always "too far gone" on drink and drugs to resist.

Models have always had easy access to sex and drugs, and many have been ruined by them. But as the average age of fashion models throughout much of Europe slips from 16 to 15 and even 14--they are routinely known as baby models--there is a growing debate over who is responsible for their well-being. If an Italian prosecutor gets his way, it will soon be the modeling agencies that "discover" them. Rather than arresting Maja's alleged attackers, prosecutor Marco Ghezzi is charging Mandelli and his partner, Alberto Righini, with abandonment, which in Italy includes neglect, child abuse and endangering a minor's life. If convicted, the two face a maximum five years in prison. Righini and Mandelli insist they are innocent. "We do not assume total responsibility for the models," Mandelli told NEWSWEEK.

Who should? Many in the fashion industry believe it is up to the teenagers' parents. "We're not babysitters," insists David Brown, head of D' Management Group, a top modeling agency in Milan. "The parents are legally responsible for their children until they are 18." Others believe models are hardly behaving differently from their peers flipping burgers. "If teenagers want to get in trouble, they will," says veteran Italian fashion photographer Bardo Fabiani. With agents hovering over them, bookers organizing their schedules and drivers chauffeuring them from one appointment to the next, Fabiani argues, "girls in the fashion business are actually more protected than in any other work environment."

That's what Maja's father thought, too. When he brought her to Milan, he met with her management team and sat in on her orientation. Flash gave her a mobile phone and the keys to a shared flat in Milan's historic district, an arrangement that her father--a single parent-- approved. By the time he left two days later, he felt confident that Maja was in good hands: her agents would keep her busy during the day with appointments and photo shoots. Sure, she'd be on her own at night and on weekends, but the agency made her sign an agreement stating that she wouldn't leave the apartment at night. Unfortunately, they couldn't make her keep it.

Young models didn't always have such free rein. In the past, girls under 18 usually had a parent or chaperone to keep an eye on them. When Brooke Shields arrived ...