Child Sexual Exploitation - Not an easily preventable Crime

Trying to resolve the child protection enigma

Recent I was listening to a morning programme on Radio 4 - a British Broadcasting Corporation radio station - when I heard someone who has access to a recent investigation into the issue of child sexual exploitation rubbishing the police about their perceived ignorance in dealing with this crime. This woman was rather patronising, and gave the impression that young police officer were out of their depth in trying to deal with this problem, and that, consequently, they were not competently dealing with the issue.

Now, normally, I do take a critical approach pertaining to matters involving the police, which is probably a reflection of my social worker background, and emphasis on being an agent of social change, rather than one of social control, which, probably unfortunately, places the police further along the  right of the control spectrum.  But, notwithstanding this starting point, I did feel that this was further evidence of what could be seen as 'a blame everybody but me/us culture.' An approach which cannot but further undermine most formal agencies involved in the onerous and limitless challenge of trying to protect vulnerable children.

I heard this woman going on about how the police needs to be more aware of how to deal with vulnerable females who are at risk of sexual exploitation, and need to explain to these young girls how vulnerable they are due to them going missing. Now, it is the case that all of this is taking place in the context of groups of solely and/or predominantly British Muslim men having been found guilty of perpetuating systematic sexual crimes against young predominantly or solely white girls in a number of local authority areas, and being given the long prison sentences they justly deserve. 

The demographics of these crimes suggest that the men were racially motivated in their choice of white victims, although it could also have been influenced by the fact that, with more white children being in such vulnerable situations, there was more opportunity for them to be chosen. The bottom line, of course, is that these men had criminal intent and saw nothing wrong with committing these crimes against these vulnerable minors.

What I do question, however, is the rather simplistic and idealized view that some people seem to have about just how difficult it can be to fully protect vulnerable children and young adults from sexual exploitation in a 'liberal democratic' society, such as Britain. The local authorities in which I have worked throughout several decades, all have formal multi-agency arrangements to try to tackle the issue of children going missing and children being at risk of sexual exploitation. Indeed, when females who are in care go missing, the risk of them being subjected to sexual exploitation is one of the priority consideration, and this has been the case for social services and police departments for decades.

Some of the problems in protecting vulnerable children from sexual exploitation include things such as the young persons' emotional and intellectual level of functioning, restrictions over what forms of physical controls local authorities can use to try to prevent children in care going missing, the impracticability of constantly monitoring the movements of vulnerable young persons, the duty on local authorities to respect the human rights and views of the young person, even at times when doing so can compromise the safety their protection, and the financial and legal obstacles to using probably  the ultimate protection strategy; that of seeking a court order to place persistent absconders from care who are believed to be being subjected to sexual and other harmful forms of exploitation, into secure accommodation.

During my social work practice, I have seen examples of vulnerable children in care who were suspected of being sexually exploited, being very reluctant, if not refused to disclose what was happening to them when they went missing, or being compliant with the arrangements and strategies which were put into place to try to protect them.  Like children and young adults who are resigned to continuing the harmful behaviours they are indulging in, and for whatever reasons, children at risk of sexual exploitation are just as likely to be reluctant to disclose relevant information, and to consistently cooperate with those working to stop them from placing themselves at risk. 

With the young person, for a combination of personal, familial and social reasons, not complying with the less restrictive attempts by social services to protect them, and the threshold for initiating legal proceedings not being met or considered desirable, social workers may be left little choice but to look to the police to consider what action they could be taken against known or suspected perpetrators of CSE. Here, at least in the past, the problem has been that the young victim or potential victim might not be willing to disclose the relevant information which could lead to the suspected perpetrator, and the police might therefore conclude that they do not have sufficient 'evidence' to even speak to the suspected perpetrator/s and warn them off.

And so we can have a situation in which vulnerable young persons remain at risk of CSE because of the systematic failure - probably for different reasons - of everybody - including the young persons and their families - and organisations charged with the task of safeguarding them. With the end result being that some young persons and their parents and children's advocates, blame 'the system', which usually means the social services and the police.

Yes, it is the case that some local authorities and some police departments do fail to have in place and consistently exercise more robust procedures to protect vulnerable children, which is sometimes due to human resources problems. However, too often when  media and politically orchestrated debate about the protection of children takes place, it is done in an unbalanced manner, with little or no regard being given to the fact that, arguably, and with all things being equal, most children in care are being reasonably well safeguarded, and that the tragic failing of the small proportion should not be allowed to disproportionately place the services in disrepute.  

Sensationalising the problems within the agencies charged with safeguarding children and families is not a prudent approach, and is likely to prove counter-productive.

The advantages of getting a rounded view

OWOHROD