THE Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has pledged to introduce mandatory reporting of kid sexual abuse, in order that it becomes an offence, incurring skilled and criminal sanctions, “to fail to report or to cover up” abuse.
Introducing a debate, within the House of Commons on Monday evening, on child sexual exploitation and abuse, Ms Cooper said: “Child sexual abuse and exploitation are essentially the most vile and horrific of crimes, involving rape, violence, coercive control, intimidation, manipulation and deep long-term harm. . .
“All of us have a responsibility to guard our youngsters. . . But these crimes haven’t been taken seriously for too long, and much too many children have been failed.”
Mandatory reporting of kid sexual abuse advisable by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), chaired by Professor Alexis Jay, who presented its findings in October 2022 (News, 20 October 2022). Professor Jay now chairs Act on IICSA, a campaigning group. On Sunday, it released a press release calling on the Government to fulfil its guarantees concerning child protection.
Recent press coverage of kid sexual abuse, the statement says, “highlights a troubling trend of misinformation that undermines the true scale of the crisis and the pressing need for reform”. The Inquiry heard from greater than 7500 victims and survivors and “provided a transparent roadmap for motion. Yet, two years later, none of its recommendations have been fully implemented.”
Ms Cooper said that the brand new measures could be introduced within the Crime and Policing Bill, to be put before Parliament this spring. She had, she said, called for this ten years ago, alongside the Prime Minister when he was Director of Public Prosecutions. “The case was clear then, but we have now lost a decade, and we’d like to get on with it now.”
The Home Secretary committed the Government to 2 further IICSA recommendations for laws: to make grooming “an aggravating think about the sentencing of kid sexual offences, since the punishment must fit the terrible crime”; and to “embed” information and evidence gathered on child sexual abuse and exploitation “in a transparent latest performance framework for policing” through the introduction of a “single child identifier” within the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
Ms Cooper referred each to the work of IICSA and the 2014 report by Professor Jay and Louise Casey (now Baroness Casey) on the Rotherham scandal, which was a spotlight of Monday’s debate. At least 1400 children were sexually exploited in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.
During the talk, the Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp, called for a latest public inquiry into child abuse by grooming gangs. Ms Cooper said that the priority must be implementing recommendations from existing inquiries.
Professor Jay had said on Monday: “Our mission shouldn’t be to call for brand new inquiries, but to advocate for the total implementation of IICSA’s recommendations. A Child Protection Authority is critical to this process.”
Act on IICSA said in its statement: “Politicising the problem of sexual violence fails to acknowledge its lifelong impact and hinders the implementation of important and urgent overhaul to our systems required. It is imperative to maintain the concentrate on radical reform, as evidenced by IICSA’s findings and smaller independent inquiries. The reality is stark: roughly 500,000 children are subjected to abuse annually within the UK. These children cannot afford further delays in meaningful motion.”
This statement, acknowledged and quoted by Ms Cooper, warned that misinformation was masking the true scale of the child-abuse crisis within the UK. Over the weekend, the owner of the social-media site X, Elon Musk, accused the safeguarding Minister, Jess Phillips, of being a “rape genocide apologist” for rejecting calls for a latest grooming-gangs inquiry.
Sir Keir said: “Those which are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible, they’re not excited about victims. They’re excited about themselves.”
The safeguarding charity ThirtyOne:Eight welcomed the Home Secretary’s statement. Its chief executive, Justin Humphreys, said: “The events of the previous few days have yet again highlighted how we’re failing to guard children from abuse on this country. We are pleased to listen to that the Prime Minister is committed to the implementation of all 20 of the IICSA recommendations.”
He he described this as “a once-in-a-lifetime probability to do something significant. The time for motion is now.”
In 2023, Professor Jay was commissioned by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to review the Church of England’s safeguarding (News, 20 July 2023). In her report, The Future of Church Safeguarding, she advisable the creation of two latest independent bodies: the primary to perform safeguarding work, and the second to supply “oversight and scrutiny” of the work of the primary. Both, she said, must be established as charities and funded by the Church (News, 21 February 2024).
Last February (News, 1 March 2024), the Synod voted to form a Response Group to this report and to the barrister Sarah Wilkinson’s report on the demise of the Independent Safeguarding Board (News, 15 December 2024). One 12 months on, in London next month, the Synod is to contemplate two options. Both represent a big change within the Church’s delivery of safeguarding, with implications for the roles of tons of of individuals (News, 20 December 2024).
