These horrendous experiences were presented to inquiries that have already been conducted, in particular, the long-running Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) which heard from more than 6200 victims and survivors.
Social media pronouncements (and subsequent political posturing) made this week betray a deep ignorance of a lengthy, detailed process. Indeed, it almost felt as if the IICSA didn’t actually happen, that its robust conclusions and recommendations are not worthy of implementation. And yet it did and they are.
The IICSA produced its final report in 2022 and in the same year published a report specifically focussed on Child Sexual Exploitation by Organised Networks. That begs the question as to how many more inquiries we need to be satisfied it is time to act to protect our children and young people?
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Even more galling is the fact that none of the 20 recommendations of the main IICSA report were acted upon by the previous UK government. Child Protection Committees Scotland strongly agrees with the position of the IICSA Chair, Professor Alexis Jay, when she says what we need is immediate action to implement those important safeguards rather than more inquiries.
Whilst the IICSA report is focussed on England and Wales, we need serious public consideration of the implications from a Scottish perspective. We are not immune to the issues raised by the inquiry. Child sexual abuse is real, and much more common than we’d like to think. Prevalence rates published in the report are staggering, estimating that 16% of girls and 4% of boys will be subject to child sexual abuse during their childhood.
These appalling figures mirror those published in the Council of Europe’s long-standing campaign One in Five, which identifies the same levels of abuse across the whole of Europe, which of course, includes Scotland.
Sadly, those figures have not always been taken seriously but thanks to the IICSA report, we have evidence from elsewhere that means we have no choice but to listen, and act. We simply must stop and think what that means for us.
Here in Scotland, that means that at least 6 children in every class of 30 will experience some form of child sexual abuse.
Admittedly, we do not know the actual prevalence rates in Scotland, and there may be different patterns to the geographical coverage of the abuse, but the only reason we don’t know for sure is because of a lack of rigorous research.
What we do know is that we cannot ignore the evidence from elsewhere and kid ourselves that it is not happening on a similar scale, right here, right now.
In truth, we could and should implement these vital actions now. In Scotland we also need to consider the implications of one of the key recommendations for England and Wales, namely the need to establish Child Protection Authorities. This is a genuinely thorny issue as structural change needs careful handling but given the size of the challenge we simply must be open to thinking it through.
Child protection is changing with the rapidly increasing threat from online activity. The National Crime Agency estimates that 850,000 adults in the UK pose a sexual abuse threat to children. How this threat manifests itself through the internet, rather than family, friends or other personal contact presents significant challenges for our existing approaches. We must rethink and adapt our systems to tackle the full range of sophisticated and devious methods being used by adults who actively seek to harm children.
In a bleak week, thankfully there is some progress to reflect on. In Scotland we already have a Redress Scheme and our own Minister for Children and Young People, and the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCIA) is well underway.
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It has a more restricted remit than the IICSA and has yet to conclude, but it is clear that the evidence so far reflects similar traumatising experiences, as told by adult survivors. We cannot turn away from these testimonies – the SCIA gives insight and understanding of a world where children were brutally sexually and physically abused by adults who silenced them through fear and intimidation, and where institutions repeatedly put their own interests before those of the children.
In Scotland, we have a recently formed National Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Group which is long overdue and Child Protection Committees Scotland is pleased to be a member of that group. While it is good to see some progress being made in Scotland, we can and should be going a lot further, and with a greater sense of urgency.
The experience of child abuse is not limited by country borders and the IICSA report applies equally in Scotland as it does in England and Wales. We must echo those calls for implementation rather than further inquiries. If, as we suspect, the figures for child sexual abuse in Scotland are as dire as elsewhere then we have a crisis on our hands that needs action right now.
Tam Baillie, Chair Child Protection Committees Scotland
