The CEOP today published the findings of a 6 month investigation into the devastating crime that is called Street grooming.
UK NATIONAL CENTRE FOR CHILD PROTECTION PUBLISHES OUTCOME OF SIX MONTH ASSESSMENT INTO “ON STREET GROOMING” AND CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
The UK’s national centre for child protection – the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre – today published the findings of a six month investigation into the devastating crime that has widely been called “on street grooming”.
CEOP announced its intention to carry out a thematic assessment in January 2011 after growing public concern of a trend whereby groups of men were reportedly grooming and sexually exploiting children across the UK.
This type of child abuse often involves rape. It is premeditated, planned and carried out systematically with a complete lack of respect or empathy for the victims, often singled out for their vulnerability, and its damage can last a lifetime.
Relevant research was reviewed, debriefings with practitioners, frontline staff and the wider safeguarding community conducted, as well as face-to-face victim consultation. This review covered 65 pieces of research literature from 1998 and 24 policy guidance documents from 2001. CEOP also requested relevant data on cases of child sexual exploitation since 1 January 2008, from all police forces, LSCBs, children’s services and voluntary service sector providers.
‘Out of Mind, Out of Sight’, published today, shows that while some areas of the UK have victim focused services with agencies effectively working together to identify victims of child sexual exploitation this is not the case in all areas.
The assessment highlights multi-agency work as essential to ensuring that the victim’s needs come first and key to tackling this crime. All agencies in contact with victims must be aware of the early signs and effects of abuse and vulnerability. Many victims often fear the police and court processes and are intimidated and threatened by offenders so a long term and coordinated approach to supporting them is needed.
It is possible that the majority of incidents of child sexual exploitation are currently unrecognised and unknown, remaining unreported or hidden in other recorded data.
Areas cannot conclude they do not have an issue with localised grooming simply because this has not been researched in the area and all agencies and the wider community must be alert to the issue to identify children at risk from ‘localised grooming’.
Victims of sexual exploitation may come into contact with agencies through a range of behaviour. Early warning signs like going missing from home or truancy may be missed by agencies. This led to inconsistent methods of data and intelligence collection of sexual exploitation.
‘Out of Mind, Out of Sight’ acknowledges the major challenges faced by agencies in identifying victims of child sexual exploitation and in gaining the trust of victims to build successful cases against offenders. The grooming process itself often means some victims don’t see themselves as victims of sexual abuse and are unwilling to disclose information to police or other authorities.
Full details of best practice around the UK are available in the assessment document. The assessment advocates similar approaches be more widely adopted, based on the needs and specific risks to children in local areas.
Each local authority has a Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB). These have responsibility for coordinating the protection of children from sexual exploitation through agencies working together, under clear statutory guidance. The assessment revealed that a comparatively small number were effective in this. As a result, data on child exploitation may not be collected or easily obtainable, with no single system used to record data on child sexual exploitation.
Membership of LSCBs includes the police, the Local Probation Trusts, Youth Offending Teams, NHS Trusts, and the Connexions Service with representation from schools and involvement from voluntary and community sector organisations.