Home Office Questions: MP calls for raised awareness of child sexual exploitation
7th November 2011
Pauline Latham OBE MP has this week spoken on the floor of the Chamber of the House of Commons in order to ask the Government about raising awareness of child sexual exploitation and alerting parents to signs for grooming by family and close friends in particular.
The Member of Parliament takes a keen interest in the issue of children’s security, and was proud to have been selected to speak, and ask such an important question.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con): What steps is the Minister taking to alert parents to signs of grooming being forced on to innocent children by either their family or close friends, which is completely unacceptable?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire): The crime of child sexual exploitation is utterly appalling and reprehensible, and I well understand why my hon. Friend is raising this issue, given the impact that such incidents have had in Derbyshire. I pay tribute to the work of Derbyshire police through Operation Retriever. I note that their work was recognised at the police review event in the past few days. Awareness-raising is done through the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre’s thinkuknow programme, which delivers prevention messages directly into schools and is helping to raise awareness of this issue among parents and young people.
The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has responsibility for children and families, is developing an action plan to safeguard children and young people from sexual exploitation, which will be published shortly. Raising awareness among parents of this terrible form of abuse will be an important element of that.