“It occurs where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into sexual activity (a) in exchange for something the victim needs or wants, and/or (b) for the financial advantage or increased status of the perpetrator or facilitator. The victim may have been sexually exploited even if the sexual activity appears consensual. Child sexual exploitation does not always involve physical contact; it can also occur through the use of technology.”
This definition is included in the DfE’s 2018 statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children.
Other recent work in the safeguarding field has looked to elaborate on this definition by putting it into the context in which exploitation takes place. For example, last year’s Home Office report on Group-based CSE: Characteristics of Offending highlights how the term “grooming gang” is widely used in media reports but “is an ambiguous term that has no official definition”.
“It is important to understand what is meant by grooming, and to distinguish between groups and gangs,” the report states. “Grooming is ‘a process by which a person prepares a child, significant adults and the environment for the abuse of the child’.
“So called ‘grooming gangs’ tend to be groups of men who are loosely connected, or who only have strong connections with a small number of other members of the group. They do not necessarily enter into the conflict that is often seen between ‘street’ gangs, nor do they always have associations with other, similar groups of people.”
Prevalence of CSE
Research has highlighted the difficulties in getting an accurate estimation of the scale and prevalence of child sexual abuse due to under-reporting and under-recording – the CSA Centre estimated that at least 15 per cent of girls and five per cent of boys experience some form of child sexual abuse, most of which goes unreported. The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that 76 per cent of adults who experienced rape or assault as children did not tell anyone about their experience at the time.
However, data shows that since 2013, there has been a 270 per cent rise in annual CSA offences recorded by police – in the year to March 2020, there were more than 83,300 cases – perhaps indicating that such crime is now more likely to be reported.
Another complicating factor in identifying the prevalence of CSA and CSE is that those perpetrating group-based CSE are charged and convicted with a whole range of offences, from rape and other sexual assault, to indecent imagery offences, through to trafficking offences. “It is therefore hard to get a sense of the scale of CSE,” the Home Office report states.
To improve this, a “CSE flag” was introduced in 2020 to police recorded crime. That year, 10,500 crimes were flagged as being CSE-related, rising to more than 14,000 in the year to March 2021.
“However, this is still likely to be an underestimate, as we know the flag is not consistently used across forces,” the report states.
New research by the CSA Centre also explores the challenges of getting an accurate picture of the scale of CSE. It particularly highlights confusion among safeguarding professionals over what is understood to be CSE and inadequate reporting systems as being two key barriers to getting reliable data.
Meanwhile, data collated by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services shows that the number of assessments by children’s services departments where CSE is a factor fell by around seven per cent between 2017/18 and 2019/20 (see graphics). The data, included in the association’s Safeguarding Pressures 7 report published in February, shows that one in five instances of exploitation of a child involves CSE (see ADCS view).
Impact of Covid
When the pandemic first hit last spring, safeguarding experts warned that closures of schools and support services, such as youth clubs, after-school clubs and sports teams, would increase the risk for some children vulnerable to exploitation. Covid-19 guidance also meant social care practitioners were unable to undertake home visits for children in contact with children’s services, making it harder for statutory agencies and voluntary organisations to have a clear picture of what was going on for some young people. By the time of the third national lockdown between January and March this year, services and practitioners had developed new ways of overcoming these practical barriers, and home schooling was more established. However, Ecpat UK and others have highlighted how gangs have adapted to find new ways to target vulnerable young people to exploit them criminally and sexually.
A report by Ecpat on the increased risk of online sexual exploitation over the past year states: “Previously used physical locations for exploitation of children have now given way to selling children through social media and messaging applications. There were indications of an increase in sexual exploitation through the live streaming of abuse, grooming, and so-called ‘sexting’.”
National policies
The increased scrutiny of councils’ response to CSE in recent years has led to improvements – for example, in 2018, three years after Ofsted rated it “inadequate”, Rotherham Council’s children’s services received a “good” judgment. A major factor in the improvement was its work to tackle CSE, according to the inspectorate.
Despite this, in its 2019 joint targeted area inspection report on sexual abuse in the family, Ofsted raised concerns that safeguarding agencies were failing to learn the lessons of the CSE deficiencies in their wider efforts to tackle CSA. In particular, agencies were too slow to recognise the signs of abuse happening and ensure children were removed from abusive settings as quickly as possible.
These themes were also highlighted in a 2020 analysis of serious case reviews in England where CSE featured. Other factors it identified included health professionals’ lack of understanding of CSE, limited knowledge of the UK law and reluctance to apply relevant policies. Suboptimal communication with the child, between agencies and with families, lack of understanding of the young person’s context, their vulnerabilities and their continued needs for care and protection were also important.
Following this, the Home Office published its thematic analysis of group-based CSE. This found that contact with potential victims tends to take place in locations frequented by offenders (in the course of their employment and/or social activity) and where safeguards around victims are lower, emphasising the need for appropriate multi-agency safeguarding and support for victims; and for consistent recording practices and information-sharing between agencies to inform local threat profiles.
The report sets out how local multi-agency safeguarding partnerships are well placed to take the lead in understanding the local context and facilitating strategic engagement between communities, agencies, businesses and charities to understand the profile of offending and identify opportunities to disrupt it.
The Tackling Child Sexual Abuse strategy sets out key measures the government is taking to tackle CSE nationally. Published in February, the strategy outlines policies to tackle abuse, prevent offending, protect children and young people, punish offenders and support victims.
Local practice
With inspection activity over the past 18 months curtailed due to the pandemic, there has been limited intelligence on how local safeguarding systems are responding to CSE. A recent independent case review into Bradford’s safeguarding work concluded that the response to CSE victims still needs to be improved, particularly practitioners’ knowledge of the role of drugs and alcohol in grooming children and the impact of cultural backgrounds, disadvantage and disability on the vulnerability of children, improving school attendance of vulnerable children, and understanding outcomes for young girls who fall pregnant.
Leading the response is The Children’s Society, which is running a three-year multi-agency initiative called Disrupting Exploitation in a number of large cities in England and which is shaping responses to CSE in other areas including Essex and Torbay. Meanwhile, Rochdale Council has developed Sunrise, a dedicated complex safeguarding team supporting victims and tackling perpetrators (see practice examples).
A four-year project launched in 2019 funded by the Economic and Social Research Council is looking at developing new ways that councils can improve their safeguarding work with vulnerable children, including the response to CSE. The project, co-ordinated by academics at the University of Sussex and involving researchers at the University of Bedfordshire, is looking at how nine councils embed three specific areas of safeguarding work which could be developed further across the UK. This includes Bristol City Council which is using trauma-informed approaches to tackle CSE among vulnerable young people (see research evidence).
With the pandemic set to have increased the number of children vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation, and gangs and abusers adopting more sophisticated methods, it is likely that safeguarding agencies and practitioners will need to adapt how they work to prevent abuse and support young people that have already become victims.
ADCS VIEW COLLECTIVE RESPONSE NEEDED TO TACKLE CSE
By Charlotte Ramsden, ADCS president 2021/22
The sexual exploitation of children and young people (CSE) has been a consistent focus for government for several years, resulting in the knowledge of professionals and the awareness of public increasing immeasurably. There is a widespread and welcome understanding that children and young people are victims and that there are often links between CSE and other forms of criminality and violence.
We know that exploitation can take many forms and that it is increasingly facilitated by technology; whether that’s social media, instant messaging or online gaming platforms being used by individuals or organised networks to solicit self-generated indecent images or coerce children to live stream footage from their bedrooms. However, perpetrators also continue to find sophisticated ways to commit offences against children in person as well as or because of technology.
The internet has transformed our lives and most children and young people cannot conceive of life without it. During the three national lockdowns and enduring periods of social distancing restrictions driven by the pandemic, people of all ages spent increasing amounts of time online for work, education and entertainment purposes. We also socialised online too when we couldn’t meet up with friends and family in person. On top of this, Covid-19 significantly disrupted children and young people’s contact with trusted adults in their lives, whether that’s teachers or extended family members. Add to this the additional pressures on parents and carers and it’s perhaps stating the obvious to say online harms and risks have been heightened, although to what extent is not yet fully clear.
A truly multi-agency response is needed to tackle CSE. Close working with health partners, education and police is crucial in both recognising and preventing harm. Relationship-based practice models are showing green shoots of positive impact and sophisticated intelligence gathering is helping disruption efforts. Parents and carers are more aware of online risks but not always confident in taking action. The experience of the last 18 months should result in a renewed focus on understanding and responding to the use of new technologies to facilitate or commit abuse and exploitation.
