The details of the Rochdale Safeguarding Children Board’s latest report into the grooming and abuse of young girls in the city make for uncomfortable reading.
The girls repeatedly told social workers and police that they were being abused by men, but professionals considered them to be “making their own choices” and “engaging in consensual sexual activity”.
In Rochdale – and several other high-profile sexual exploitation cases – the fact that a number of the young victims were in care led to an outcry over the safety of residential homes.
Despite the grim details of the report, Jonathan Stanley, chief executive of the Independent Children’s Homes Association (ICHA), believes that it is the first official review to give a balanced account of the steps that residential care providers are taking to tackle sexual exploitation.
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