Council data shows over 6,000 children vulnerable to exploitation
More than 6,000 children across England have been reported as at risk of child sex exploitation since the beginning of 2013, it has been claimed.
Channel 4 News said it has seen data from 88 councils from across England which showed that over 18 months more than 6,300 children under 16 were flagged up to social services for being vulnerable to exploitation.
The data includes a range of abuse and it is recorded in different ways by different councils.
An investigations team spoke to alleged victims in Rotherham who are waiting to see if their cases will get to court, including a girl who claims she was 14 when she was groomed. The alleged victims described those who groomed them as their “boyfriends”.
The team also spoke to community groups who are trying to tackle grooming and include alleged victims who are now mentors to vulnerable children.
Ann Coffey, the Labour MP for Stockport who is chairing an inquiry in to child exploitation, told the programme: “I think that child sexual exploitation has been under-identified for a very long time – part of the reason being that victims feel they are going to be blamed for what happened to them.”
She said she was not surprised by the data unearthed by Channel 4 News because it seems to suggest that progress is being made.
She said: “Agencies are being much more proactive in going out and identifying children at risk of sexual exploitation and hopefully intervening before that sexual exploitation and the trauma that it causes children occurs.”
She also believes that with the proper information about what is happening the public could be helped to understand the signs and symptoms of these crimes in their own neighbourhoods, so they can report children who are at risk to the agencies who can protect them.
The issue of “victim blaming” by the agencies and authorities who were tasked to support the children had been a “a real problem for victims” in the past, but Ms Coffey believes this situation is now changing.
She said: “I don’t think the police can deal with this by themselves – that is why we need to engage the community.”
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