en asks if government policies inadvertently facilitate sex abuse
Newcastle has joined an infamous list of UK cities.
On 9 August the last of four trials closed with the conviction of 17 men and one woman for the abuse of girls.
In an investigation so large, where cases were heard in four groups over the last two years, they were convicted of rape, supplying drugs and conspiracy to incite prostitution. 20 young women gave evidence covering a period from 2011 to 2014 with 26 defendants facing a total of more than 100 charges with 22 victims.1
Reaction
The media the following day was full of phone in shows, radio discussion and newsprint covering all aspects of the trial including a dissection of the actions of Northumbria Police. Not only were there earlier opportunities missed to investigate the horrific abuse that took place, but the police paid thousands of pounds to a convicted paedophile to infiltrate the group and collect evidence as to where the ‘parties’ were taking place where the abuse occurred.
People discussed: police errors; the ethnicity / religion of the perpetrators being overlooked by the media; the same resulting in a ‘politically correct’ response where authorities are afraid to offend a people group; the problems of education; lack of provision for young people; availability of alcohol and drugs; poor sex education; social workers. Essentially, every possible idea was aired. Except for one.
Society has so normalised underage sex, that children and young people are experiencing a kind of state sanctioned abuse which allows criminals to abuse them further.
What case reviews said
That may well appear too startling, or even too inaccurate, a statement to make, but an overview of the evidence appears to support it. All of these are extracts2 from serious case reviews, or public enquiries into the events that took place in each of these UK places:
Torbay 2013: the sexual health (service was focused on) providing a confidential service with a view to preventing pregnancy
Liverpool 2013: Child D was seen as ….an adult making her own choices on issues such as… pregnancies
Rochdale 2013: the drive to reduce teenage pregnancy… is believed to have contributed to a culture whereby professionals may have become inured to early sexual activity in young teenagers
Rotherham 2014: children as young as 11 were deemed to be having consensual sexual intercourse
Thurrock 2014: national and local policy agendas have driven practice …to have a stronger focus on sexual health and teenage preg- nancy rather than on sexual abuse
Oxfordshire 2015: a professional tolerance to knowing young teenagers were having sex with adults…developed
Hampshire 2015: school staff were made aware of the sexual activity by the GP, but judged it to be consensual
Bristol 2016: a confused and confusing stance in national policy about …sexual activity, leaves professionals…struggling to recognise and distin- guish between sexual abuse, exploitation and/or underage sexual activity; this risks leaving some chil- dren at continued risk of exploitation in the mistak- en belief they are involved in consensual activity
Putting aside individual errors, and acknowledging that people bent on committing a crime will commit crimes, professionals reviewing abuse cases are repeatedly proving that society’s attitude to children and sex is a major factor in why children are not being helped out of abusive situations.
Autonomy and vulnerability
In Hampshire, the school Child F attended, was one for children with specific learning needs and disabilities. The child’s sexual autonomy was held in such high regard that abuse continued to take place despite school staff having been informed of the sex a pupil was having, but they deemed it ‘consensual’. Many of the children in these cases were under local authority ‘care’. An adjective linked to every abuse case was ‘vulnerable’ when describing the girls, regardless of whether they lived with their parents. In some instances, the views of parents were dismissed; concerns they raised were swept aside as teenage sex was just expected to occur.
The Brook Sexual Behaviours Traffic Light Tool is a resource designed to help professionals make decisions about safeguarding, respond to sexual behaviour and distinguish the safe from the unsafe. A green light is given to ‘oral / penetrative sex with others of the same / opposite gender who are of similar age and developmental ability’. Clearly, older men having sex with underage girls wouldn’t fit that green light. But that children aged 13 could be given a ‘green light’ if engaging in sex with a 17 year-old (the age of consent is 16 in the UK), demonstrates that the foundation is well and truly laid for professionals to totally dismiss the idea of promoting the idea of no sexual activity being a good starting point for the vulnerable for whom it cares.
Playing into abusers’ hands
Contraception is routinely available to underage pupils in many schools in the UK, without the knowledge of their parents. In 2016, it was reported that rates of teenage pregnancy in the UK halved in the past two decades and are at their lowest levels since record-keeping began in the late 1960s.3 As non-barrier methods of contraception are widely used, with implants being favoured due to their length of effectiveness and no need to remember to take a pill each day, STI rates have risen.4
Society and the state, whilst celebrating efforts to successfully reduce pregnancy in underage girls by medicating them as teenagers, have succeeded in exposing children to conditions that could have lifelong implications including infertility. Beyond this tacit abuse, through schools and social services, an attitude is facilitated that plays into the hands of the vile abusers who prey on the vulnerable: the belief that underage sex is ‘normal’.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING:
Unprotected: How the normalisation of underage sex is exposing children and young people to the risk of sexual exploitation, by Norman Wells, ISBN 978 0 906 229 248, £7.50, published by Family Education Trust, The Atrium, 31 Church Road, Ashford,Middlesex TW15 2UD www.familyeducationtrust.org.uk
FOOTNOTES
1 BBC news website
2 unprotected, Family Education Trust
3 Guardian July 2016
4 Chlamydia statistics from 2017 show a rise from 90,000 cases in 2004 to over 222,000 in 2013, dipping to 202,000 in 2016.
