Transcript Understanding and Managing the Risk to Children in the

Young People, Sexual
Exploitation & Risky
Behaviours
Dee Cooley: City of York Safeguarding Children
Board, [email protected]
Amanda Gaines: YOR-OK Children’s Trust Unit,
[email protected]
Learning Agreement
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Confidentiality
Active listening without interruption
Challenge the view NOT the person
Take responsibility for own learning
Support others without judging
Keep to time
Health warning – If you are affected by the
workshop content, please feel able to take
“time out”, and make sure you get support
from workplace or community based services.
“There is always a certain risk to
being alive and if you are more
alive there is more risk” (Ibsen)
• Social Networks - “…young teens are posting
sexually explicit images of themselves on SNSs,
and self-regulating each other with sexist,
derogatory and demeaning language” Ringrose
(2008)
• Sexting - The sending of sexually explicit
•
texts/photos (creation & distribution of indecent
images of children, SOA 2003)
Sexual Exploitation - YP as victims and
perpetrators
Young People Online
• 99% of 8-17 year olds have access to the
internet
• 49% of these (incl. 25% of 8-11 year old
internet users) have an online profile, e.g.
Bebo, MySpace of Facebook
• 59% use SNSs to make new friends
• One third of 8-11 year olds, and 60% of
12-15 year olds are unsupervised online
• 33% of parents and 43% of children say
parents set no rules for SNS use
Ofcom (2008 & 2009)
Sexualisation Online
• SNSs allow users to create their own online
identity, including posting photos
“Girls…report being under increasing pressure to
display themselves in their bra and
knickers…whereas boys …display their bodies in
a hyper-masculine way…”
and
there is a “popular perception that young people
(particularly girls) are increasingly being
pressured into appearing sexually available”
Papadopolous (2010)
Online Grooming
“The emergence of ‘social sites’ is having
an effect on online offending patterns...
Websites which incorporate personal
profiles, social networking, instant
messaging, games and photo sharing into
the same online space … mean that
information gathering on a child and
grooming can take place in one online
environment”. CEOP 2009
• TUK films: “Consequences” & “Jigsaw”
YP & Mobile Phones
“Amongst children, mobile phone ownership
increases dramatically with age, from a quarter
of 5-6 year olds (26%), to half of 7-8 year olds,
and three quarters of those aged 9-10
(77%). At the start of secondary school, nine in
ten children have a mobile phone (92% of 1112s), rising to almost all (96%) 15-16 year olds”
(CHILDWISE Monitor 2009-10).
Sexting
• One in four 11 to 18-year-olds have received a
•
•
"sext" by phone or email (Beatbullying)
Liz Merton, head of Spanish at Radley College in
Oxfordshire, told MPs and school leaders at a
Westminster Education Forum meeting that
“sexting” is one of the biggest concerns among
teachers
Teenagers taking/sending explicit photos of
themselves or others may be committing an
offence - although it is legal to have sex at 16
under British law, it is illegal to take, hold or
share "indecent" photos of anyone under 18
• TUK film “Exposed”
Sexual Exploitation Definition
The sexual exploitation of children and young
people under 18 involves exploitative situations,
contexts and relationships where young people (or
a third person or persons) receive ‘something' (e.g.
food, accommodation, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes,
affection, gifts, money) as a result of performing,
and/or others performing on them, sexual
activities….
Definition Cont’d
….Child sexual exploitation can occur through
use of technology without the child's
immediate recognition, for example the
persuasion to post sexual images on the
internet/mobile phones with no immediate
payment or gain. In all cases those exploiting
the child/young person have power over them
by virtue of their age, gender, intellect,
physical strength and/or economic or other
resources.
National Working Group for Sexually Exploited Children and Young
People, 2008 (definition developed by young women)
London LSCBs Assessment Framework
• Category 1 (at risk): a vulnerable child who is at
risk of being targeted and groomed for sexual
exploitation;
• Category 2 (medium risk): a child who is targeted
for opportunistic abuse through the exchange of sex
for attention, accommodation, food, gifts and drugs.
The likelihood of coercion and control is significant;
• Category 3 (high risk): a child whose sexual
exploitation is habitual, often self defined and where
coercion / control is implicit.
Sexual Exploitation Intervention Diagram
(SERA Model developed by The National Working Group for Sexually
Exploited Children and Young People, 2008 from Pearce et al 2002)
Preventing Sexual Exploitation
Local strategies should aim to prevent the
sexual exploitation of c&yp by:
• reducing their vulnerability
• improving their resilience
• disrupting and preventing the activities
of perpetrators
• reducing tolerance of exploitative
behaviour
• prosecuting abusers
Children Who Sexually Harm
• “The sexual behaviour of young people can be seen
on a continuum from mutually agreed experimentation to very serious crimes such as multiple rape.
Most children engage in activities that form a normal
part of their sexual development. Much of this
behaviour is not abusive ... Other types of behaviour
are harmful and not appropriate”. Lovell (2002)
• Statistics indicate that between one quarter and one
third of sexual abuse and sexual harm is committed
by children and young people. Mason & Erooga
(2006)
My Dangerous Loverboy
• Campaign to raise awareness of internal
(within the UK) trafficking of young people
for sexual exploitation.
• Education resources available, incl. 20
minute film
• Campaign music video:
http://www.mydangerousloverboy.com/