Victims of \u2018grooming gangs\u2019 have been badly let down, but children must be protected on social media as well as in the real world<\/p>\n
Two seemingly contradictory things are true. It was appalling for the UK\u2019s domestic policy agenda to be hijacked last week by Elon Musk\u2019s blaze of interest<\/a> in child sexual exploitation gangs. And government action in response to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse<\/a> was long overdue. As ministers look in more detail at plans announced in a panic, it is essential that the many anxieties surrounding group-based child sexual exploitation \u2013 euphemistically known as \u201cgrooming gangs\u201d because of the techniques used to ensnare vulnerable girls \u2013 do not distract from the seriousness of the issue.<\/p>\n On Friday, Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, added his voice<\/a> to those calling for a new inquiry into child sexual exploitation<\/a> \u2013 a specific form of abuse carried out in exchange for money or other things that victims want or need; and often involving financial advantage for perpetrators, who traffic children under their control. A large majority of group-based child sex offences (83% in 2023) are committed by white men<\/a>, although some areas have a problem with gangs of mainly Pakistani-heritage abusers. It is true that the inquiry\u2019s broad remit did not include a thorough investigation of child sexual exploitation specifically. There are many gaps in the data, as multiple reviews have noted.<\/p>\n Susanna Rustin is a Guardian social affairs journalist<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Victims of \u2018grooming gangs\u2019 have been badly let down, but children must be protected on social media as well as in the real world Two seemingly contradictory things are true. It was appalling for the UK\u2019s domestic policy agenda to be hijacked last week by Elon Musk\u2019s blaze of interest in child sexual exploitation gangs. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}