Legal News

Watchdog Ofsted has said many children are being put at risk of being sexually exploited as a result of failings in children’s services at local councils.

BBC News reports that, despite the scandal of child sex exploitation in Rotherham and other towns like Rochdale, Telford and Oxford, children are still being put at risk – and preventing child sex exploitation has not been made a priority as it should have been.

The Local Government Organisation said that Ofsted’s report into child sex exploitation made “uncomfortable reading”.

Ofsted’s Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw commissioned the report The Sexual Exploitation of Children: it couldn’t happen here, could it?

Ofsted said:

“Some professionals have simply failed to properly apply child protection processes to young people at risk of being sexually exploited.”

On Tuesday (18/11/14), MPs published a separate report into the Rotherham child abuse scandal, which found that the local authority had failed children in the town who had been targeted for sexual abuse.

It has previously been alleged that council officers and police were hesitant about taking action against abusers, because members of the British Pakistani community in the town were involved in child sex exploitation – and there were fears about destabilising the general community if action were taken against the men involved in organised child abuse.

Some police officers have also claimed that some young girls being sexually exploited had been groomed by men and believed that the men abusing them were their boyfriends, which made collecting evidence for prosecution more difficult.

The report by MPs found that child abuse in Rotherham was not an “isolated case”, however – and was “widespread” and “serious”.

MPs called into question the effectiveness of the children’s watchdog Ofsted.

The report also found local councils were failing to provide adequate support for children in local authority care, who had gone missing and then returned – and inconsistencies in planning had also left some children exposed to the risk of child sex exploitation.

Councils were also failing in making the connection between children who went absent from school and the possibility of child sex exploitation – and local council efforts to raise community awareness of child sex exploitation were described as “ad hoc” and “reactive” rather than proactive.

Victims of child sex exploitation also tended to be isolated – or become isolated – from family and friends, with many dropping out of education or becoming teenage parents.

A total of 40% of child sex exploitation victims are also caught committing crimes – and frequently end up in the criminal justice system rather than receiving appropriate support to tackle the issues around their abuse.

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