Hansard

I hope that Parliament will bear with me as I speak with a heavy cold, but also with a heavy heart as we debate this horrendous subject. Child sexual exploitation is a blight on our society, and on societies throughout Europe and around the world. In an ideal world, this debate would not be required, because we would not have to worry about child sexual exploitation and society would not have to contend with issues such as systematic and complex sexual abuse, sexual abuse within the home, child trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, grooming or forced marriage. However, we are where we are, and sadly our society still has to contend with the issue. Child sexual exploitation covers an extremely broad range of issues, and a large number of agencies and organisations are engaged in efforts to tackle and prevent it. It is generally recognised that it is—sadly—a growing problem.

I was not a member of the Public Petitions Committee when Barnardo’s lodged the petition in July 2011, but I joined the committee in time to take part in the visit to Barnardo’s facility in Glasgow in September 2012, following which the committee agreed to hold an inquiry into the issue. I was pleased to see at first hand the work that goes on at Barnardo’s in Glasgow, and I am pleased to hear reports that it has growing positive relations with the local police and is now something of a model of best practice.

We know that there is good practice in Scotland, but it is patchy and unco-ordinated. It is recognised that child protection committees are best placed to collect and map data in their areas, and where good practice is found the information should be shared and, where possible, rolled out in other areas.

At this point, I add my thanks to Barnardo’s for highlighting its concerns to us through the Public Petitions Committee. I also thank the committee clerks, the Scottish Parliament information centre and the committee’s adviser, Dr Sarah Nelson, for all their hard work during the inquiry. Their assistance was invaluable, as was that of the agencies and organisations that gave evidence.

We heard some harrowing and shocking evidence during the lengthy inquiry, and I for one hope that the outcome will be a stronger focus by all agencies on tackling and preventing child sexual exploitation with the aim of totally eradicating this blight on our society. There is no quick fix, of course, and our inquiry was certainly not tasked with coming up with all the answers. Indeed, as it progressed it became clearer that the issue was a complex and continually evolving one, especially with the emergence of concerns about online activities, about which we have already heard this afternoon.

However, we came up with a large number of salient recommendations, one of which is worth highlighting:

“The Committee recommends that the Scottish Government, Police Scotland and all key agencies adopt a high commitment to disrupting perpetrator activity and identifying those at risk.”

Associated with that, the committee’s report states:

“The Committee recommends mandatory training for frontline and specialist police officers on legislative options to disrupt perpetrators. The Committee also recommends better police analysis and collation of information about and the tracking of abusive networks.”

Dealing with the monsters who are at the heart of the problem and disrupting their operation will go some way towards reducing the figures for CSE crimes. We heard from Daljeet Dagon from Barnardo’s that, in order to reduce child sexual exploitation effectively and to protect current and potential victims, it is necessary to take resolute action against the perpetrators of these crimes. When she addressed the committee, she spoke about what she called the triangle approach that Barnardo’s has developed,

“whereby the focus is on the victim but there is also recognition that there is a child sex offender and a facilitator.”

She went on to say:

“We have to flip the triangle over and focus on disrupting and prosecuting perpetrators, and we should identify locations and police them better, so that we protect young people and prevent them from becoming involved in child sexual exploitation.”—[Official Report, Public Petitions Committee, 11 June 2013; c 1434.]

However, the report also notes that one of the difficulties in disrupting perpetrators is the attitudes of young people and those who witness CSE. Initiatives that are designed to challenge those attitudes face difficulties, not merely because perpetrators are skilled in operating under the radar, but because in such crimes young people often do not see themselves as victims, as we heard from a number of witnesses. Waiting for young people to complain could be an ineffective strategy for catching offenders, since victims often protect perpetrators—who initially treat victims as special and might offer them alcohol, drugs, money and affection—because of misplaced loyalty, fear or intimidation.

Underuse of legislation does not help. The Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005 created a specific offence of child grooming and provided for an application to the court for a risk of sexual harm order when an individual is suspected of involvement in a course of conduct to groom a child. However, the committee heard that there is disquiet among practitioners about the fact that the 2005 act is not well known among, or well used by, the police.

Children 1st expressed disquiet about low usage rates of existing legislation. It called in evidence for the police to have additional mandatory training that would highlight the legislative options that are available to disrupt and prosecute CSE offenders. That view was echoed by Police Scotland. I am pleased that the minister endorsed that earlier.

Barnardo’s called for the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill to include tackling CSE and for joint work with the police to disrupt perpetrator activity as part of the proposals for children’s services plans. I urge the minister to consider taking on board that request as the bill progresses through Parliament.

Parliament will fail the people of Scotland if the hidden problem of CSE is not properly tackled with a clear strategy. If our committee’s report and resultant action by the Government and associated agencies help just one child to avoid the effects of CSE, that will be a job well done, but we should not stop until the nightmare has been eradicated.