reclassification of child abuse as national threat, how will it be policed?

[ChoochiWhoo]

The gyst is that protection services who fail consistently could be inprisoned in light of cases such as recent child abuse scandals. Will mr DC be funding these systems better though? Lack of funding is a huge Issue, and Im also a bit that this is only a national threat as a bunch of girls from Oxford have been involved smacks of classism to me. news.sky.com/story/1437290/pm-children-abused-on-industrial-scale

I am absolutely furious at DC using this as a 'soundbite' to aid his re-election campaign.

Nothing will be done, no extra money / training / actual accountability of those decision makers involved.

You only have to look at what happened to Sharon Shoesmith to see how a person can over see the ruination of the lives of vunerable children and get off completely.

We should collectively hang our heads in shame in this country.

Shouldn't MPs who know about other MPs sexually abusing children face the same punishment they are public servants after all

In a way that allows for maximum backside covering for those who have messed up (so probably not at all in some cases and hugely overzealously in others).

Well it's all about the detail, isn't it? Eg what would be a reasonable defence to a charge if failing to discharge a statutory duty to report concerns? Passing them on to a senior ? Ensuring that follow up action is taken ? Something else?

Presumably it would only be taken forward in the most severe cases in any case - and I doubt there are many people who would disagree with those. I do agree that SW desperately need better funding and there is already a shortage of good people coming into the profession, which won't be helped by this change

There are no national intelligence gathering systems in place for child sexual exploitation data in the UK.

This government have legislated so social service provision for vulnerable children can be privatised and safeguard checks dropped.

Protection services have always been inadequate for vulnerable children in Care that is why children in Care and Care Leavers are at increased risk of self harm and mental illness because of on-going stress. Now services are being destroyed. Privatisation means profiting from poor and vulnerable children not helping them. Welfare cuts also mean that there is a 19% increase in Care Leavers turning up at homeless hostels which themselves face closure because of welfare cuts.

Child poverty levels are the highest ever recorded and the London Herald report that there are children so hungry in London they are having to turn to prostitution. This is happening in all regions of the UK.

Sexual violence in the UK is as bad as in war zones in deprived parts of the UK. www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/26/gangs-sexual-violence-warzones Girls as young as 11 are being abused and it is going undetected, ignored and unreported. This sounds familiar and I could fill this page with headlines about the suffering this government are currently causing children and young people.

The constant in all these child sexual exploitation cases is the discrimination these children have suffered from the authorities who have taken the view that the girls are complicit in their own abuse because children in Care are bad. The region where the abuse occurred is irrelevant.

Mr Cameron has a lot to answer for which is the main reason he does not want to be confronted in a head to head televised debate with Ed Miliband.

The institutional and societal complacency regarding vulnerable children is historic and those in a position of authority ought to face criminal charges if they allow CSE to continue. Perhaps the threat will make them have the same regard for vulnerable children as they have for their own.

Just enforce the existing laws.

Some of these girls were 14, 13 and even 12 years old. SEx with a minor is illegal wtf the SS and police were thinking is utterly beyond me.

Moniker I agree that the existing law re sex with under 16 year olds should be enforced, too often excuses are made.

It's the government trying to put a quick fix in, what is needed is more trained child protection social workers, more training for teachers and child protection liaison officers. However this all takes time and money, something which the government will not do.
There is a shortage of child protection social workers and with this, lots of extra reporting will go on leading to more investigations, higher case loads and then the chances that an overworked social worker will miss something crucial. Unfortunately when social workers and professionals like doctors make mistakes the effects can be catastrophic, what we need to do is to put measures in place to stop mistakes taking place. Punitive measures aren't the answer.

I think it needs to be both Iona and the culture needs to change, some of the comments made by Police Officers and Social Workers and the attitude to the girls complaining as detailed in the report are dreadful.

YES to Moniker's point.

Ah yes. Those in Oxford all play croquet on the lawns of their mansions by the river Thames. Those in social care of course just get placed in turreted airy children's homes or have foster carers who pay for them to attend private school. Wake up. Oxford has some horribly deprived areas and many of these girls had incredibly difficult family lives which caused them to be taken into social care. Even those with more stable home environments fall easily into the wrong crowd and get lured into horrific situations. Just because the city they lives in is one of the richest in the country does not mean it is a class issue. Oxford like any other city has glaring differences in the social standing of its inhabitants. Take a trip to Blackbird Leys or
Cowley in Oxford and come back saying it's a class issue.

I think we should all take another look at what cashewnutty said on page 1.

For goodness sake DC's a fine one to talk about walking on by when he and his confederates have been stripping resources away from all public services. If anyone's failing it is coming down from the top. Anyone who's ever worked in any public services know how bad things are on the frontlines. We've got teachers telling us they're leaving the profession in droves because of the extra stress on them, now health visitors who have no time to properly inspect anything and are tied by top-down inadequate target-driven cultures are going to be jailed? I expect it will be the frontliners and their managers who take the fall, not the target-setters and fund-reducers in the background?

Media soundbites just before an election on this kind of topic just make me feel sick.

Oh yes, and this is the party that wants to strip more resources away from services to the public yet. The institute of fiscal studies said somewhere that the cuts they are planning would 'fundamentally alter the relationship between individual and the state' - because there will be no services.

This sounds familiar and I could fill this page with headlines about the suffering this government are currently causing children and young people

There is no doubt that vulnerable children esp those in care have been let down by society in the UK its a national disgrace.

But please dont heap all this blame on the conservatives, child poverty grew like never before under a long long labour government. They failed their targets, and the gap grew not closed under them. What you are seeing now is that poverty even worse. What did labour do to help those at the bottom of our society?

Ed Miliband has said sorry over Rotherham. This crosses party lines.

FWIW, beyondrepair, I view tories and the new labour government you're referring to as two sides of the same coin. They're all neoliberalists and yes, share equal blame. Dunno if current Labour are really moving away yet.

It's a nice idea. But, I'm not sure how it would work. Public officials already break the law when they get involved in abuse in residential homes, (or hospitals, if you're a friend of the PM) or take bribes, or offer private contracts to family and friends or abuse their funds, generally. It's often said that the UK has enough laws and rules already. It's using the ones that we have that's the problem, not creating new ones.

That said, maybe this would be a nice law to pass (and be ignored). At least it makes a statement, even if it's a useless one.

From the Govt that vastly reduced local council budgets....

Anyone with half a brain can work out that you cant provide a quality service with no resources.

Great way to scare shitless frontline staff though

The council leaders could donate some of their bloated salaries to individual checkups on the girls' welfare.

Beyondrepair

Child poverty has never been adequately tackled in the UK nor has the safeguarding of vulnerable children in Care. However, destroying Welfare as the Conservatives are currently doing means that we are seeing the most vicious attack on vulnerable children and people in living memory. The system needed to be improved not destroyed and this government are destroying the lives of many children and young people in many ways.

20 years ago SW knew that teenagers put into care homes were likely to be trafficked into prostitution. Not much has changed. Girls who lacked a male protector/ wore short skirts/ were pretty were asking for it.

The problem is that men who hold these attitudes towards women and girls can still hold influence, power and respect, and oh yeah, lots of them who hold those attitudes can stay married, be 'loving' daddies and not be outcast from their families. Oh, and be police officers, magistrates, councillors, MPs, teachers and social workers.

Until women and decent men have zero tolerance for men who use porn/ pay for sex/ have discriminatory attitudes/ indulge in sexual power games/ ogle teenage girls, and those men face losing their jobs/ homes/ families/ friends and all social status nothing will change. Having a generation of men who have imported their attitudes from parts of the world where sexism is even more endemic than here just makes things worse.

And while we have a government of rich, boys school educated men determined to cut or privatise all the public services that protect the vulnerable I can't see that happening.

Sorry i haven't responded in a few days , I agree entirely with missy mayhem re:terrible sexist attitudes ...you only have to remember the horrible propaganda against those single mums who have destroyed Britain "getting themselves pregnant" that he keeps pushing.

David Cameron that is...

I don't care who the people are or what they did (or failed to do), trying to enable 'reprisals by right wing groups etc' to follow them to where they've now moved to get away from them by naming the small village they now live in is incredibly scummy. I've reported your post, wendolene66.