In Professor Jay’s report into the exploitation that occurred across decades in Rotherham we saw again and again that people knew what was happening.
Children were telling us what was happening. But they were no safer for it. Why? Why when, as the years rolled by in Rotherham, across the country our understanding of child sexual exploitation (CSE) was broadening and deepening?
No area, no community and no demographic is ‘immune’ to exploitation. To tackle CSE local leaders in every authority must first take the responsibility on their shoulders for deciding that CSE does happen there and for providing clear, decisive and unequivocal local leadership to find and end it.
What we have learnt from Rotherham is that too often leaders have failed in this: failed to recognise CSE or acknowledge the victims as such.