Statement from the Children’s Commissioner on Child Safeguarding Review Panel report on victims of sexual abuse

This report is a devastating indictment of how starkly we are failing children by ignoring their experiences and voices.

It sadly reflects what I have found in my own work – not just the horrors children have endured, but also the shocking failures by adults and professionals to identify and respond in the right way. Children have described to me being made to feel as though what they have experienced is not serious, or as though they have brought it upon themselves. They are often forced to repeat their stories or re-explain to multiple professionals, adding additional trauma.

We need radical change in how we respond to child victims and a system of support designed around their needs. That includes joined-up services that work together to understand a child’s experience of getting support, a single unique ID for every child that allows vital information to be shared between professionals, and making schools, where children attend every day and vulnerabilities can be quickly recognised, the fourth statutory safeguarding partner alongside health, police and social care.

As Children’s Commissioner I know there are many dedicated and compassionate professionals who care deeply about the children they care for and go above and beyond – but the findings in this report suggest this is often the exception, not the norm. The government’s Children’s Wellbeing Bill gives us a real opportunity to transform children’s experiences – our starting point must be listening to them.

In my report on Children’s Experiences as Victims of Crime published earlier this year, I called for an End-to-End Child Sexual Abuse Review. This would address the specific challenges faced by child victims of sexual abuse under the age of 16, who were excluded from scope in the Rape Review. I will be pushing for criminal justice inspectorates to prioritise a joint inspection into the experiences of victims of child sexual abuse of the criminal justice system, and for the government to ensure that preventing and better responding to CSA is a priority in its forthcoming VAWG strategy.