Child sexual abuse in the UK is rife and requires multiple solutions. All our home secretary gives us is baseless prejudice
Child sexual abuse is horrendously common. Recent estimates suggest that more than one in seven girls and one in 20 boys, or half a million children, are sexually abused in the UK each year. Such abuse happens across all segments of society, in a wide variety of contexts – though most commonly within the home.
Focus on this issue has led to significant increases in police recording of child sexual offences, reaching more than 100,000 in 2021/22 in England and Wales. That also reflects efforts from police to take sexual abuse more seriously and better support victims – although issues still do persist. Professionals are also now better at recognising the risks around sexual abuse of older children outside the home.
