Responding to NSPCC’s annual state of the nation report on child safety, ‘How Safe are Our Children,’ Anne Longfield, Children’s Commissioner for England said:
“NSPCC’s report paints a extremely troubling picture of child abuse and neglect in England today. The sharp increase in recorded sexual offences against children may be because of better detection, rather than more abuse and neglect but our ongoing work in this area, including through our inquiry into child sexual abuse within families, indicates that the numbers of recorded offences are likely to be just tip of the iceberg. Behind the statistics there are thousands of individual children who are experiencing a childhood blighted through abuse and neglect. Protecting our children must be a national priority for every one of us.”