This week, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) published its long-awaited final report. It describes in harrowing detail the experiences of more than 7,300 victims and highlights the systemic failings of institutions in protecting children and addressing child sexual abuse (CSA) and child sexual exploitation (CSE). However, as with other similar inquiries that preceded it, many survivors fear that the findings and recommendations of the IICSA will be swept under the carpet.
Child sexual abuse and exploitation takes many forms: from abuse within the family to group-based sexual exploitation or online grooming. The national crisis in child sexual abuse cannot be overstated. The devastation and harm caused by any form of sexual abuse is immense, and the impact on victims and survivors is often lifelong.
These are not crimes of the past. Child sexual abuse has happened – and is still happening – in towns and cities across the country. It is estimated that one in six girls and one in 20 boys in England and Wales experience child sexual abuse before the age of 16. Police forces have also reported a 57 per cent increase in reports of child sexual abuse in the last five years. However, the report warns that these figures are likely far higher, as instances of child sexual abuse often go unreported or are not properly recorded by relevant agencies.
Yet, the horrifying abuse perpetrated against children in the UK has gone unnoticed for decades and rarely makes headlines. Why?
Because most victims are not deemed ‘newsworthy’. They are neither rich nor famous, and their pain doesn’t sell papers like tabloid gossip and political drama. But that doesn’t mean that the abhorrent abuse they experienced shouldn’t be taken seriously.
most victims are not deemed ‘newsworthy’. They are neither rich nor famous
Anyone can be a victim of abuse – regardless of race, gender or socioeconomic background – and I do not want to erase the experiences of any survivor.
However, it would be disingenuous to not speak about the characteristics that make many children vulnerable to exploitation or abuse. Censorship on issues as important as sexual abuse does nothing to protect the people that matter most: the victims.
The IICSA report stated that, in surveys, girls were at least three times as likely as boys to describe experiences of child sexual abuse. Disabled participants were twice as likely to describe such experiences as non-disabled participants, and those who lived in a care home were nearly four times as likely to have experienced child sexual abuse. Those who had experienced childhood neglect were nearly five times as likely to have experienced child sexual abuse as those who had not.
By brushing over the very real sexual abuse and exploitation that is still happening in some of the country’s poorest communities, we are turning the children involved into ‘second-class victims’. We are suggesting that their abuse is less important than the profits of the mainstream media.
And, speaking from personal experience, I know that the scars of abuse never go away.
I was groomed from the age of five and was sexually abused for almost a decade. Despite the veneer of a happy childhood – I had plenty of friends, went to church twice a week with my grandmother and excelled in school – I was suffering greatly. I didn’t realise that the hand in my underwear and ‘little secrets’ were not normal. It didn’t feel right, I didn’t like it, but I truly believed that I had brought it all on myself.
I was too young to understand that abuse was not normal.
As I grew older, I learned to equate sexual interest with love. If someone wanted me, they surely cared about me. When social media entered the equation, a Pandora’s box of exploitation was unleashed on my young brain. Even as I write this, I feel ashamed of my abuse. I feel stupid for not seeing their malicious intent or understanding that I didn’t have to satisfy their sexual cravings.
But it is never the victim’s fault.
When I spoke out about my abuse, the criminal investigation into my abusers dragged on for nearly two years, only for my case to be dropped before it ever reached court. As a young, trauma-experienced child, I felt stuck in a constant cycle of seeking support only to be told that it was ‘not their responsibility’. Having been ignored, overlooked and even blamed for the abuse I suffered was so distressing that I simply stopped asking.
And my experience is not unique. In England and Wales, just 3.8 per cent of sexual offences lead to prosecution or a summons, and recent figures from the NSPCC revealed that prosecutions for child sexual abuse have fallen by nearly 50 per cent in the last five years. The IICSA report uncovered a culture of institutional indifference and hostility towards victims, where victims were ‘frequently blamed’ and accused of lying when they attempted to disclose the abuse they had experienced. Furthermore, a lack of appropriate policies and procedures often meant that at-risk children were not identified or did not receive adequate support.
Simply put, institutions prioritised their own reputations, and those of the individuals within them, over the protection of children.
Inaction from those tasked with protecting children – police, local authorities, social services, schools, religious organisations and others – sends a very concerning message to victims. It suggests that they don’t matter, and that there is no point in coming forward because no one will care.
At the end of its report, the inquiry sets out 20 recommendations that should be implemented as a matter of priority, in order to prioritise the protection of children, improve public awareness of child sexual abuse, and strengthen the response to instances of alleged abuse from a criminal and institutional standpoint.
However, there are concerns that the report, like so many before it, will fail to cut through the day-to-day drivel in the mainstream media or force change in organisations that spent decades turning a blind eye to child sexual abuse and exploitation. We are always told that ‘mistakes were made, and lessons have been learnt’. However, my experience and the experiences of thousands of other victims and survivors paints a very different picture.
What does it say about our society when a Love Islander’s pregnancy announcement warrants a full-page spread, while the widespread abuse and exploitation of thousands of little boys and girls doesn’t even make it onto our Twitter feeds?
