Report finds that three-quarters of councils are failing to implement measures to protect vulnerable young boys and girls
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Several councils have failed to implement measures to protect vulnerable young people from gangs, according to a report. Photograph: Giles Moberly/Rex
An inquiry into child sexual exploitation by gangs will be launched on Friday, as a report finds that three-quarters of councils are failing to implement measures to protect vulnerable young people.
Fears about the rise in child sexual exploitation have being growing after high-profile cases of groups of mainly Asian men grooming teenagers for sex in Derby and Rochdale. The Office of the Children's Commissioner (OCC) warned that the problem is more widespread and stereotyping of perpetrators could mean victims are being missed.
The OCC is taking the unusual step of exercising its powers under the 2004 Children's Act to investigate the scale of sexual exploitation of girls and boys by youth street gangs and other groups in England in a two-year study. Under the powers local authorities, police, health and education professionals and the judiciary will be forced to provide information about child sexual exploitation for the first time, said Sue Berelowitz, deputy children's commissioner, leading the inquiry.
"There is a huge gaping hole in our knowledge about this area. Children are being failed, they are subject to a most pernicious form of sexual abuse and they cannot access protection and support," she said. "We believe this is happening in every part of the country and these children need to be protected."
Sexual, and often violent, exploitation of children and young people was happening throughout the country, often perpetrated by young people in street gangs, and not only by certain groups of men, she said.
"It is a very worrying picture, with patterns that differ according to demographic and area," she said. "In Derby it was Asian men but in [a recent case in] Torbay white men were involved. It happens in cities but also in rural areas. If it is happening in those areas it is happening everywhere."
A report by Bedfordshire University released on Friday reveals that three-quarters of councils have failed to put in place government guidance issued in 2009 to protect children from sexual exploitation.
Professor Jenny Pearce, principle investigator of the two-year report, What's Going on to Safeguard Children and Young People from Sexual Exploitation?, said some local authorities were turning a blind eye to abuse.
"We are seeing only a quarter of LSCBs [local safeguarding children boards] being proactive and that is shameful. What worries me is that to ignore the problem is to collude in the abuse," she said.
The issue has come under the spotlight after a series of cases. In January the ringleaders of a gang in Derby who groomed girls for sex were given indefinite jail sentences, while in Rochdale nine men were found guilty of a series of sexual exploitation related offences.
The report states that there is "no one model of how young people are sexually exploited": 31% were exploited by a older "boy/girlfriend" but 27% of cases involved young people exploiting other young people. "Recent media attention has suggested predominance of exploitation through an organised network of perpetrators," the report adds, but finds that this was only true of 18% of cases studied.
Sue Jago, report author, said: "The danger is that local authorities think this only happens to a certain type of child by a certain group of men, and then they are blinkered to different models of abuse."
The study finds that less than half of all LSCBs collected data on exploitation, prosecutions of sexual predators was low and the experience of going through the court process often left abused children traumatised. It highlights a snapshot of 158 cases, that resulted in only 34 convictions which, it said "reflects the low number of cases reaching court [and] may also reflect the low number of people receiving appropriate support before, during and after the court proceedings."
Young girls, particularly in violent gang situations, were too often seen as part of the problem, rather than as abused children, said Berelowitz. "These girls are too often seen as transgressors or aggressors, rather than victims," she added. "But the abuse of young girls by gangs and groups transcends the awfulness of anything I have ever seen."
Berelowitz detailed a case where girls of 11 and 12 were expected to give oral sex to lines of young men. Another example involved young women being offered as "payment" as part of a drug deal or girls associated with one gang being sexually abused as "payback" by another gang.
The report suggests that the most vulnerable children are falling prey to sexual predators. Sexually exploited young people studied were up to four and a half times more likely to be accommodated in residential care, just under half were known not to be attending school while 41% were already in contact with children's services.
The minister for children and families, Tim Loughton, welcomed the inquiry and said the findings of the Bedfordshire study would help inform a government action plan expected next month.
"Child sexual exploitation is an appalling form of child abuse and we are determined to do everything possible to stamp it out," he said.
"LSCBs have a key role in tackling child sexual exploitation but too many are not taking the issue seriously enough and abuse is often remaining hidden from view. Raising awareness must be a priority along with tackling the difficulties that young victims and their families can face in getting justice."
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