Some 30 children in Dundee, many of them runaways, were identified as being at risk of being sexually exploited and forced into prostitution last year.
The shocking figures emerged the day after the Scottish Parliament’s public petitions committee agreed to carry out a full inquiry into the scale of child sexual exploitation in Scotland.
According to children’s charity Barnardo’s Scotland, which runs Fighting Against Child Exploitation (FACE), it worked directly with 16 children who were runaways or at risk of child sexual exploitation in the city last year.
They also made contact with another 14 referred to the service because of concerns they may also become victims.
Barnardo’s say child sexual exploitation can take a range of forms. These include informal exchanges of sex for drugs, alcohol or accommodation or a more calculated process carried out by organised gangs.
After targeting a young person, often someone who has run away from home, the adult may shower gifts on their chosen victim and attempt to drive a wedge between them and their families and friends.
The child may also be encouraged to experiment with drugs or alcohol so they become increasingly and eventually completely dependent on their abuser, who can then demand they pay their way through prostitution.
The charity warns that either way, the victim will suffer severe trauma and long-term psychological damage.
A Barnardo’s spokeswoman told The Courier: ”The service receives runaway referrals and child sexual exploitation (CSE) referrals. We have not separated the runaway referrals and CSE referrals as often they are interlinked and episodes of going missing are an indicator of risk of CSE, dependent on circumstances.
”Based on our CSE and runaway referrals over the past year we have worked with 16 young people and have had contact with a further 14 young people who were referred due to concerns they may be at risk of CSE.”
The charity launched a petition 18 months ago calling on the Scottish Government to investigate the full extent of child sexual exploitation in Scotland as the most recent guidance on the crime was issued in 2003 and is now deemed out of date.
More than 3,000 people signed the Barnardo’s petition, convincing the petitions committee to launch a full-scale inquiry into the issue.
Martin Crewe, director of Barnardo’s Scotland said: ”We are very pleased the petitions committee has decided to conduct a full inquiry into the sexual exploitation of children in Scotland.
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”This follows the Barnardo’s Scotland Petition to the Parliament, which was supported by over 3,000 people from across Scotland.
”Our work with young victims of CSE shows that the sexual exploitation of children in Scotland is becoming increasingly organised. That is why we urgently need more information about the nature and scale of CSE in Scotland, and concerted action to tackle it.
”The petitions committee has carried out influential inquiries in response to petitions in the past, and we hope this inquiry will also lead to a change in the way we deal with CSE in Scotland.”
Writing in The Courier in January, the then acting-director of Barnardo’s Scotland Sally Ann Kelly warned child sexual exploitation is ”the biggest hidden child protection problem” in Scotland today.Social media a key tool for criminalsDundee City West MSP Joe FitzPatrick said the inquiry into child sexual exploitation comes at the right time as traffickers are using increasingly sophisticated methods to co-ordinate their crimes.
Mr FitzPatrick, who has previously visited the award-winning FACE project in Dundee, said many criminals are now using social media to groom their potential victims.
He said: ”Child sexual exploitation is a key child protection issue and has been described as the UK’s biggest hidden child protection problem. The dangers have been intensified by the widespread use of social media.
”In one respect, it is useful to have these new figures which help to quantify the extent of child sex exploitation in Dundee and elsewhere.
”I am glad that the Scottish Parliament will now be conducting a full inquiry to ascertain the full scale of the problem in Scotland, in the light of the increasingly organised nature of much of the exploitation and the increasing use by exploiters of social media to access victims.”
Mr FitzPatrick said everyone should be aware of how young people could fall prey to sexual exploitation.
”The role of a teacher, parent, friend, social worker or guardian, as confidants can be the first vital step in getting help and support,” he said. ”We must all redouble our efforts to tackle child sexual exploitation.”High-profile case brought issue to the foreThe sexual exploitation of children has remained a hidden issue for years.
It gained a new prominence earlier this year, however, when nine men were jailed at Liverpool Crown Court for a total of 77 years after they were found guilty of sexually exploiting 47 white, working-class teenage girls in Greater Manchester.
All nine men were of Asian origin provoking a storm of controversy. Judge Gerald Clifton said the men, eight of Pakistani origin and one from Afghanistan, treated the girls, some as young as 13, ”as though they were worthless and beyond respect”.
The case led many to suggest that child sexual exploitation was a problem particularly associated with Asian, and specifically Muslim, men. It later emerged that of the 56 men convicted of crimes relating to the sexual exploitation of children since 1997, 53 were Asian with all but three of them Muslim.
But researchers at the UCL Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, whose study was used to back up claims the crime had a racial aspect, said it was impossible to draw such a conclusion from their study because it was based on an extremely small sample size involving just two police investigations.
They said that the reason most victims were white was because of population size rather than it proving abusers were specifically targeting young girls of a particular ethnic group.
After the conclusion of the Liverpool trial, Crown prosecutor Nazir Afzal said of the men: ”It wasn’t their race which defined them, it was their treatment of women.”
The nine men are appealing their sentences, claiming the all-white jury prevented them from getting a fair trial.