Sexual grooming of children far worse than thought, says minister

Barnardo’s warns government plan to tackle abuse and trafficking ‘needs to be enforced’ The sexual grooming of children in the UK is a much bigger problem than has previously been recognised, the government has said. The children’s minister, Tim Loughton, announced that an action plan will be launched to tackle child sexual exploitation, which experts say involves British children as young as 10 being trafficked for sex around the UK. “This isn’t something that has just appeared, but the extent of it hasn’t been recognised and we are underestimating the problem,” Loughton said on Tuesday. “The cleverer we are about it, the more horrified we are likely to be by what we discover.” People sometimes struggled to believe that such cruelty could exist in the UK, he said. But he added: “Exploitation is happening here and it is happening now.” The government has launched an investigation into the extent of the problem and would use its findings to devise a plan to tackle it, which is due for publication in the autumn, he said. Loughton said he could not give precise details of what it would include, but gathering data and evidence would be a “first major step” to tackling child sexual exploitation and putting it at the heart of policing. He added: “Sexual exploitation has not been fully understood by the judiciary and justice system.” The UK’s biggest children’s charity, Barnardo’s, welcomed the move but said the government had to “pick up the pace” as it examines better ways to protect children. The profile of domestic child grooming and trafficking was raised in January after the jailing of a gang of Asian men in Derby who had been grooming girls as young as 12 for sex. The same month nine men in Rochdale were arrested under suspicion of rape, inciting child prostitution, allowing a premises to be used for prostitution and sexual activity with a child. The action plan is likely to look at how police rely on evidence from children, who are often threatened with physical or sexual violence if they talk to authorities, to bring the abusers to justice. It is also likely to look at the intimidating and aggressive nature of court cases which can see children who have been abused by a number of men questioned by several barristers. “What makes this crime doubly difficult to prosecute is that even if children do get over the huge hurdle and want to bring their abuser to justice, they then have to face a judicial process which sometimes treats them as though they were somehow complicit in their abuse,” said Loughton. The government would not shy away from looking at whether certain ethnic groups in specific areas were more likely to be involved in sexual exploitation, he said. “If there has been a reluctance to [look at the problem] because of a fear of opening a can of worms, then we have to expose that. I don’t care who the perpetrators are, they have to be exposed and brought to justice.” But he stressed that sexual exploitation was not confined to one ethnic group. “Operation Retriever [in Derby] centred on one specific ethnic group but in other areas there are different abusers of different ethnic groups. They can be white, middle-class abusers online – exploitation is not a BME [black and minority ethnic] monopoly,” he said. Following the Derby case the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre is to investigate “on-street” grooming, and establish whether there are patterns of offending, victimisation, or vulnerability. That report is due next month. Anne Marie Carrie, chief executive of Barnardo’s, welcomed the promise of a child sexual exploitation action plan but said it had to have the tools to change the situation. “It’s the first step in the right direction but it needs more pace and needs to be enforced,” she said. Barnardo’s had dealt with 417 children who had been exploited on the day of the announcement, she added. “Those 417 children can’t wait, their lives are being trashed while we are devising an action plan,” she said. Children Human trafficking Child protection Crime Social care Alexandra Topping guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 17, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.