To think the DfE doesn't care that girls are being raped in schools?

[VickyEadie]

www.tes.com/news/our-kids-were-raped-classmates-dfe-wont-listen

Safeguarding - no longer an issue that matters, especially where girls are concerned.

To the people questioning the rape of a girl in Year 2. It says the victim was in Year 2, it does not mention what year the rapists were in (yes, rapists - 2 of them - multiple rapes www.tes.com.c.timeshigheredprod.ent.platform.sh/news/exclusive-school-staff-failed-stop-six-year-old-playground-rapes, it's horrific).

What would be a clear plan of action.

I would like Women's Equality Party, FPFW, and WPUK to speak up and tell us how to organise to get our voices heard.

I would even like to know if this is a suitable topic for a Mumsnet campaign, @MNHQ ?

Well, scrap the Women's Equality Party. Their tweet about this heartrending topic?

A devastating and compelling read from parents whose daughters were raped at school. The educationgovuk and DamienHinds must stop stalling and make #RSE compulsory without exception

twitter.com/WEP_UK/status/1040158793026482177

RSE is not going to solve this, WEP, and I'm beyond disappointed that you affect to believe that it will.

worridmum boys can get erections before puberty, in fact even little babies can get them. I've witnessed this myself, though thankfully not in a sexual context.

They physically are not capable as the penis does not get erections until pubity so it would be sexual assault under the UK definition (equally as serious i am told....)

Rubbish, babies and toddlers get erections.

I think as the children can't be punished, the parents should be prosecuted.
No normal child displays this kind of behaviour, it's something they have learned or been able to access at home and that's scary. Even scarier is the chance that the boys were sexually abused themselves.
Parents today expect school to teach everything, we see it on here how "The school should do something about it".
It's time parents were held responsible for their lack of parenting.

The bottom line is that this problem arises from too much emphasis on the boys committing the crimes being "trouble", suffering from "behavioural problems" and needing support. Quite possibly they do. But the problem is you cannot do this in the same mainstream school as the victims.

So you have to make a choice. Reintroduce reform schools/borstals, accepting that as a consequence many of these boys won't reform and will move straight on to the revolving door of the adult prison system, but make schools as safe as they can be for the victims.

Or say "no, we must look after these poor boys, because of course something dreadful must have happened to them to make them that way" (which indeed it probably has) - but accept that this is tantamount to saying "and screw the needs of their female victims, because girls don't count."

You cannot have it both ways.

Personally, I'm in favour of looking after the victims and reintroducing reform schools.

This makes me so angry (from the article linked in the OP):

"The recommendations to tackle sexual violence in schools made by the Women and Equalities Select Committee in 2016 have been largely ignored by the DfE.
The inquiry revealed the scale of the problem, set out recommendations and called for urgent action. But the DfE does not appear to see the safeguarding of children as requiring urgent policy action.
When the DfE was confronted with a legal challenge over its failure to act, government lawyers responded that the DfE was
(i) busy working on unrelated matters;
(ii) had been delayed by the general election; and
(iii) held up by the school holidays."

the DfE does not appear to see the safeguarding of children as requiring urgent policy action.

Indeed.

In my industry I see an awful lot of historic cases of sexual abuse and rape, involving very young victims and perpetrators, I don't think we can make sweeping statements about how much worse things are now. A lot more is reported now which is a very very positive thing, it doesn't mean it didn't happen before.

I do think the whole "is it better or worse?" thing is a distraction, though. (I remember back in the 70s having a couple of boys pin me to the ground and try to pull my trousers down on the school field at lunchtime. We'd all have been about 10 years old.)

The burning question is "what do we do about it?"

And to my mind the wrong answer is "nothing and tell the girls to shut up and put up."

@FermatsTheorem pupil referral units already exist for the children you describe as do secure care facilities (as well as youth training centres and YOIs more akin to youth prisons). You suggest bringing back borstals, they didn't help or change anything and were rude with sexual and violent abuse, abuse often begets abuse.

*rife

* A lot of hyperbole from you OP.*

Hardly. Have you actually read the article. It speaks for itself.

MrsStrowman as someone who works in the area (or a related area), why do you think these boys aren't being sent to pupil referral units or secure care facilities? I'd be interested to know.

I can see why for more minor bad behaviour like vandalism, theft, etc. you'd want to keep the pupil in mainstream if possible because exclusion does up the chances of ending up in prison as an adult. But once a young boy has progressed to rape and sexual assault, surely the progress to prison has become pretty much inevitable - sex offenders have some of the highest rates of recidivism going - and the emphasis should be on protecting the victims.

Fermats

Yes you can have it both ways, you can look after all children.
Those boys will need support and could be/ likely to be victims too.
They don't teach that behaviour at school, in society in general or ceebeebies. They don't need Borstal, their parents need prosecuting for neglect, it's nobody else's fault.

The girls are victims of rape and need protecting from further abuse and need to feel safe at school. They should be offered ongoing support and counselling.

You can have it both ways and support all victims. It's horrible for those poor little girls and wouldn't have happened if school and their parents were doing their job.

The point I'm trying to make is one of pragmatic damage limitation.

You cannot have it both ways by keeping both the perpetrators and victims in the same school. You fail the victims totally by doing this. You have to be prepared to move the perpetrators out. By all means then try to sort out their problems (I personally think you're pretty much doomed, because by the time they get to committing this sort of crime, the damage is so entrenched there's no undoing it, but I agree that in a civilised society one should at least try). But do not make the girls go to the same school as the boys who have raped them. (I can't believe that last sentence actually needs to be said.)

MrsStrowman wrote: A lot more is reported now which is a very very positive thing, it doesn't mean it didn't happen before.

pupil referral units already exist for the children you describe as do secure care facilities

I agree. As I posted upthread, this has been a problem in (and out of) schools for decades. However, I disagree that the added reporting is positive as my experience was that parents reported it decades ago but they were told, "Boys will be boys" and at that time it was acceptable to imply that girls/women are the gateways to sin so the girls were really at fault. (tbh, this seems like the attitude of the playground supervisors in the TES item.)

As back then, it seems that girls are still being assaulted/raped. As this is your professional area, why aren't the perpetrators being directed to pupil referral units or similar? (As reported in the TES article.)

It wasn’t ok then. It’s not ok now.

Why aren’t the Department for Education even doing the minimum recommended about this?

This terrifies me. My kids are in primary and one kid has already been removed because he had a knife.
There's such a culture of boys will be boys and it sickens me. My dd has been told off for being a tell tale when she tells teachers about bullying behaviour.
Who is going to keep her safe if this type of thing is happening.

I am appalled by this. The victim should be the priority. There should be support and the school community should help her going forward.

Juvenile rapists should be excluded permanently from that school. Either sent to a PRU or a school some distance away. They may be victims of a poor childhood and social services should pick them up but to expect the victim to have the maturity to face them daily and cope is beyond farcical.

@RomanyRoots - They don't need Borstal, their parents need prosecuting for neglect, it's nobody else's fault.

So if the boy turned out to have been abused by a neighbour or uncle without the parents knowledge the parents should be prosecuted and held responsible for the offenders actions?

Does this apply to all parents who have a child abused by someone other than them and they're not aware of it?

Should my parents be held responsible for the actions of the teenage boy who abused me? Do you assume they were neglecting me? They weren't, I was in what should have been a safe place. It's unfortunate for me that I wasn't safe, but it was not my parents fault and not something they could have foreseen happening.

FermatsTheorem Agree with everything you have said. Yes, it’s likely that the perpetrator is in need of help with regards to abuse/childhood neglect, but NOT around other young females that there is a chance that the incident could be repeated. The victims and possible future victims wellbeing should be put well above the perpetrator.

5,500 sexual offences were recorded in UK schools over a three-year period, including 600 rapes

Jesus Christ, I had no idea of the scale of the problem
I'm childfree and I naively thought there might be maybe one rape a year, for the under 14s at least

I don't see how the OP can be accused of "hyperbole" after such statistics
Or maybe the next insult is "hysteria" - very popular when women criticise rape & sexual violence suffered by girls or women

The guilty boys should be immediately excluded and put in special schools (boys only) with specialist staff
Protecting their victims - and future victims - the girls they raped or sexually assaulted, must be the priority here.

Disgusting to read how school staff sometimes blame the victims, not the rapists
Those staff should be suspended and thoroughly retrained in safeguarding

You cannot have it both ways by keeping both the perpetrators and victims in the same school. You fail the victims totally by doing this

This