Steve Collins of PS5 writes: we can all agree that there is no crime more horrific than the exploitation and sexual abuse of children.
A child is defined as anyone who has not yet reached their 18th birthday. The fact that a child has reached 16 years of age; is living independently; is in further education; is a member of the armed forces; is in hospital; or is in custody in a secure estate, does not change their status or entitlements to services or protection.
You only have to listen to victims and survivors recount the terrible abuse they suffered and their efforts to overcome the mental and physical scars it left them with.
Child abuse is an appalling crime against some of the most vulnerable in society. It is something that is not often discussed or well understood.
Apparently, there is not a specific offence of child abuse in law, but practitioners have defined child abuse based on the laws designed to protect children from harm. Child abuse is any form of maltreatment of a child.
Somebody may abuse or neglect a child by inflicting harm, or by failing to act to prevent harm. Children may be abused in a family or in an institutional or community setting by those known to them or, more rarely, by others. Abuse can take place wholly online, or technology may be used to facilitate offline abuse. Children may be abused by an adult or adults, or another child or children.
Child physical abuse
Child physical abuse is the non accidental infliction of physical force on a child.
This may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating, or otherwise causing physical harm to a child. Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates the symptoms of, or deliberately induces, illness in a child. Physical abuse may or may not result in physical injury. A child may be physically abused by an adult or adults or by another child or children.
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is forcing or enticing a child or young person to take part in sexual activities, not necessarily involving a high level of violence, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening. The activities may involve physical contact, including assault by penetration (for example, rape or oral sex) or non-penetrative acts (for example, masturbation, kissing, rubbing and touching outside of clothing). They may also include non-contact activities, such as involving children in looking at, or in the production of, sexual images, watching sexual activities, encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways, or grooming a child in preparation for abuse (including via the internet). Sexual abuse is not solely perpetrated by adult males. Women can also commit acts of sexual abuse, as can other children.
Child sexual exploitation
Child sexual exploitation is a form of child sexual abuse where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate, or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 years into sexual activity in exchange for something the victim needs or wants and/or for the financial advantage or increased status of the perpetrator or facilitator. The victim may have been sexually exploited even if the sexual activity appears consensual.
Child sexual exploitation does not always involve physical contact; it can also occur through the use of technology.
Child emotional abuse
Child emotional abuse is the persistent emotional maltreatment of a child that causes severe and persistent adverse effects on the child’s emotional development. It may involve conveying to a child that they are worthless, unloved, inadequate or valued only insofar as they meet the needs of another person. It may include not giving the child opportunities to express their views, deliberately silencing them or “making fun” of what they say or how they communicate. It may feature age or developmentally inappropriate expectations being imposed on children. It may involve seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another. It may involve serious bullying (including cyber bullying), causing children frequently to feel frightened or in danger, or the exploitation or corruption of children. Some level of emotional abuse is involved in all types of maltreatment of a child, but it may occur alone. A child may be emotionally abused by an adult or adults or by another child or children.
Bullying
According to a global report almost a quarter of British children in school say they are being bullied a few times a month, while more than 14pc say they are bullied frequently, making the UK the fourth worst affected of all 34 countries surveyed.
Figures suggest nearly half of children and young people have been bullied at school at some point in their lives, more than 16,000 young people are absent from school every year due to bullying.
Cyber bullying is also on the increase with the number of children and young people tormented by online trolls having increased by 88 per cent in five years.
Research has shown that young people who have an ethnic minority profile were at a much higher risk of being bullied than a young Caucasian person.
Gay or bisexual young people also experience homophobic bullying in school.
There is no doubt that digital technology has made bullying worse in schools and a huge percentage of children who have been bullied will develop depression in later life with suicidal tendencies.
What now?
In October 2022 after seven years of investigation and over 4 million pieces of evidence examined, an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse published its final report. There were apparently more than 6,000 individual stories and testimonies from victims and survivors. The suffering that lies behind it is almost too awful to comprehend. It is systemic rape, sexual assault, brutalisation, and traumatisation of generation after generation of children who had nowhere to run and were ignored, disbelieved, and even mocked when they tried to seek help.
We are all well aware of the horrific reports that we hear in the media about child abuse, violence towards children, sexual abuse and bullying.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) estimated that one in five adults aged 18 to 74 years experienced at least one form of child abuse, whether emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, or witnessing domestic violence or abuse, before the age of 16 years. This represents over 8.5 million people.
One in five children will be abused or assaulted before the age of 16. Furthermore, an estimated 3.1 million adults aged 18 to 74 years were victims of sexual abuse before the age of 16 years; this includes abuse by both adult and child perpetrators. It is said that around half of adults who experienced abuse before the age of 16 years also experienced domestic abuse later in life.
We should all hang our heads in shame.
Sadly we cannot expunge what happened to these children, but we can acknowledge it and do all we can to try and protect other children from suffering the same fate.
The Inquiry revealed fundamental systemic failings, with adults and organisations repeatedly putting their reputations ahead of protecting vulnerable children, by either ignoring or actively covering up abuse.
At the heart of the government response to this dire situation lays a resolve to ensure that the institutions of the present and future are not like those of the past.
I believe that the UK should strive to become the world leader in the fight to stop child abuse.
Obviously a crack down on grooming gangs is required and tougher sentencing for perpetrators.
However, I believe that educating the children is just as important and I hope you will take the time to read about my concept of Stay Safe Charlie and his Safe Code.
I understand how important it is for victims to hear that we know what happened to them was wrong; it was not their fault; they were failed in the most appalling way. However, as I have already said, we cannot go back and erase what happened, but we can start to atone for the past by trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again, or at the very least it happens less.
It is all well and good giving exploited and sexually abused children therapeutic support, to help ease the pain of their abuse, and help them recover and rebuild their lives, but I believe if they had been educated to life’s dangers they probably would never have needed the therapeutic support in the first place.
The government say they are going to launch a newly established Child Protection Ministerial Group, which will embed scrutiny from victims, survivors, and wider partners. They say they will keep Parliament as well as victims and survivors regularly updated on their progress.
Well, with all due respect, the Government can come up with as many Inquiries, schemes and recommendations as it likes, but by the very nature of government it will take years and cost the tax payer tens of millions… However we could start to EDUCATE KIDS TODAY at comparatively little cost.
Stay Safe Charlie
For far too long stopping child sexual abuse has been seen as no-one’s responsibility, well that has to stop and we must now make it everyone’s responsibility to do something about it and I believe that should start by educating the kids.
Nobody wants to damage the natural curiosity and openness of young children, but as adults we know that children are liable to have to deal with unpleasant experiences and potentially dangerous situations.
The horrendous statistics are now universally accepted that instances of sexual abuse, physical bullying and cyber bullying have been steadily on the increase up to the present day. Our Stay Safe Charlie campaign has been designed to instil a culture of educating children to become ‘Bully Proof Kids’, just like Stay Safe Charlie!
We are working on this new campaign to teach children how to stay safe. I invented Stay Safe Charlie, to help promote what I have named his ‘Safe Code’. Each word in the code is explained in a child friendly booklet, which gives the kids good advice.
I believe Charlie’s Safe Code will help children to learn and understand how to stay safe and what to do on those occasions when they feel uncomfortable or unsure of what to do.
By going through the Safe Code step-by-step it teaches them how it works and shows them exactly what they can do if a stranger, or even someone they know, approaches or touches them in an inappropriate manner.
To help bring this idea to life and engage the kids’ interest, I invented some little characters.
Charlie
Charlotte and
Cody – Charlie’s little pet dog.
And of course there is the CODE that I have called Charlie’s Safe Code.
NO
BODY
SECRETS
RUN
YELL
TELL
What does the Safe Code actually stand for?
Well let’s look at it word by word.
NO!
We must teach Children that saying NO is not always naughty and there are definitely some things they should say NO to.
BODY!
We must teach Children that their
body belongs to them and nobody
has the right to touch it without
their permission.
SECRETS!
We must teach Children that some secrets are acceptable (like birthday presents and parties) however, if they are asked to keep a secret that they think is wrong, they must tell somebody.
RUN!
We must teach Children that if they feel frightened, vulnerable or in danger they must run away as fast as they can.
YELL!
We must teach Children to make as much noise as they can if they feel they are in danger.
TELL!
We must teach Children that they must tell an adult if something has happened that made them scared. Mum and Dad, their teacher or even the Police.
Charlie and Charlotte are cool dudes because they have learnt the Safe Code.
We also have
WEBSAFE
This will help Children stay safe when they are on-line.
As well as
ROADSAFE
This will teach the Children how to stop, look, listen, think to stay safe when on or near roads.
