Women's Views on News |
| Report on inquiry into child sexual exploitation out Posted: 10 Mar 2015 09:43 AM PDT
The Office of the Children's Commissioner (OCC) released its report about its inquiry into child sexual exploitation in gangs and groups recently. The report, called "If it's not better, it's not the end" − Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups: One year on’, is the most comprehensive assessment of the scale and nature of this form of child abuse ever undertaken in England. Recommendations were made throughout the inquiry, and the OCC maintains that all of these must be implemented in full to address failings in policy and practice identified by the inquiry. Data for this follow-up report was provided by police forces, Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs), Health and Wellbeing Boards and voluntary sector organisations to enable the OCC to assess the extent to which the recommendations have been implemented. Relevant government departments were also asked to provide evidence. Many agencies have taken steps towards the full implementation of the recommendations and the OCC is confident that measures to protect children from sexual exploitation are much more robust as a result. However, a number of recommendations have not been implemented at all since the initial report – If Only Someone Had Listened – and there are some cases where progress is unsatisfactory; meaning that children and young people remain at risk. The OCC has welcomed the progress many agencies have made to effectively tackle child sexual exploitation (CSE), but a considerable amount of work remains to be done before anybody can be confident that children are being kept safe from sexual exploitation effectively and that those who are already victims are being supported in their recovery. National and local government agencies with a responsibility for safeguarding children from CSE must guard against complacency. And all the recommendations announced must be implemented in full to afford the greatest possible level of protection for children. The OCC is concerned that too many children at risk of becoming victims, or who are already victims, are still not being identified. In response to the questionnaire issued for gathering data for this report, 70 LSCBs (48 per cent of the 148 LSCBs in England) identified 2,092 known victims of CSE in 2013. There are still many parts of England where the identification of victims remains very low, despite the evidence the OCC published that there are children in every part of England who are at risk or who are victims. Comparing the number of identified CSE victims in similar local authorities has revealed a considerable disparity – and this is more likely to reflect the under-identification of victims than the actual incidence of CSE. It is encouraging that in many parts of England, police forces and LSCBs have put in place strategies for responding to CSE – 92 per cent of LSCBs have now produced a CSE strategy and 79 per cent of police forces have produced a strategic analysis or problem profile. There has also been a considerable improvement in the level of compliance with the statutory guidance on safeguarding children from sexual exploitation, with over half of LSCBs now meeting 13 of 15 key requirements set out in Working Together 2009. However, the OCC’s evidence is that progress at a strategic level has not yet filtered down to frontline practice. LSCBs, police forces and voluntary sector organisations have all said that strong CSE strategies do not necessarily lead to effective frontline practice. And of course, many strategies are also still relatively new – so delivery mechanisms may take some time to become embedded in people’s minds or organisational practice. The OCC identified that joined-up working and information sharing are vital for protecting children from sexual exploitation as no single agency possesses a complete picture of the intelligence regarding a particular child or young person. In the absence of clear, comprehensive information sharing protocols and processes, agencies may not share the risks faced by a particular child or young person and a particular child or young person may be sexually exploited as a result. Of 38 police forces in England, 31 have a full information-sharing protocol in place with children's services and 81 per cent of LSCBs report that an information sharing agreement is in place in their area. However, over half of police forces reported that they have experienced barriers to multi-agency information sharing. It is a concern that information sharing remains a problem, despite the establishment of information sharing protocols. The OCC identified that Relationships and Sex Education is an important way of equipping young people with the knowledge to recognise abuse, understand the issues around sexual consent and healthy relationships, and mitigate the impact of pornography on attitudes and behaviour. Schools have a vital role to play in delivering this educational content to all children in England, and the OCC has recommended that Relationships and Sex Education be taught as part of a robust PSHE programme in all schools. And like many groups, the OCC is still concerned that current UK government has not yet made PSHE a statutory subject in the national curriculum. Another issue is that in too many areas, children are not being involved in the design and development of local measures to protect them from CSE. This is contrary to Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which states that children have a right to express their views on matters which affect them. Of those LSCBs with a CSE strategy, only 31 per cent have involved children and young people in its design, and the participation of children has been described as 'tokenistic' by voluntary sector agencies. There is a lot to be gained from involving children and young people in the design and evaluation of local responses − particularly victims and survivors of CSE and this should occur in all areas. "At both a national and local level, many agencies responsible for child protection have woken up to the scale of CSE. "Many agencies have taken steps towards the full implementation of our recommendations and we are confident that measures to protect children from sexual exploitation are much more robust as a result. "However, there remain a number of recommendations which have not been implemented at all, or where progress is unsatisfactory." And its recommendations, one year on? "We do not make any new recommendations in this report. "We simply reiterate that all of our recommendations should be implemented in full, as part of a national approach to child protection and safeguarding, in order to effectively protect children from sexual exploitation." http://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/content/publications/content_920
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| Fawcett, women and the jobseeker’s allowance Posted: 10 Mar 2015 07:41 AM PDT
The UK’s job seeking benefit system is making some groups of vulnerable women even more likely to experience poverty, ill-health, exploitation and abuse, an independent inquiry has found. The inquiry also found that aspects of the Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) system is damaging hard won gains for equality between women and men and putting some women and their families at risk. The inquiry, which was chaired by Amanda Ariss, chief executive of the Equality and Diversity Forum, and co-ordinated by the Fawcett Society, found evidence of failings in both the design and the implementation of the JSA system. Where's the Benefit? An Inquiry into Women and Jobseeker's Allowance, published last month, was a culmination of months of work examining how changes made the benefits system and specifically the job seekers allowance (JSA), have impacted women. The results were very concerning. The Fawcett Society found that the job seeking benefits system is making some groups of vulnerable women even more likely to experience poverty, ill-health, exploitation and abuse. Lone parents, women who suffer violence at home and women who have difficulties with English are being particularly hard hit. Research also found evidence of failings in both the design and the implementation of the JSA system. For example, although special arrangements can be made to protect claimants who are experiencing violence from a partner, claimants are not routinely told that this is possible. Lone parents, 9/10 of whom are women, are often expected to look for full-time work involving three hours travel every day even when this makes it impossible for them to also look after their children. The Committee found the JSA system, as it is currently operating, is unnecessarily punitive, and is causing considerable unnecessary hardship and stress to claimants – both women and men – and their children. While the current system is having a detrimental impact on both men and women, the fact that it does not take the lived experiences of particular groups of women into account is making certain women exceptionally vulnerable to sanctions – with the knock-on effects of food and fuel poverty, mental and physical ill-health, and insecure housing amongst others – through no fault of their own. The report’s main conclusions are: The JSA regime takes insufficient account of the distinctive circumstances of many women's lives, in particular their higher risk of getting stuck in low-paid jobs, the impact of their caring responsibilities and the fact that they are much more likely than men to be at risk of domestic and sexual violence. Those features of the JSA system that are intended to take account of these differences are not working well. There are flaws in both their design and implementation. Consequently, the requirements included in Claimant Commitments and Jobseeker's Agreements are often difficult if not impossible for women to comply with. As a result, particular groups of women (including single mothers, women facingsexual and domestic violence, and women who have difficulties with English) are exceptionally vulnerable to sanctions through no fault of their own. This is affecting women's safety, their mental and physical health, and the health and wellbeing of their children. Some groups of women appear to be being sanctioned without good reason more often than other groups. Lone parents, 92 per cent of whom are women, are significantly more likely than other claimants to be successful when they appeal against a sanction, suggesting that they are more likely to have been sanctioned unreasonably in the first place. There is anecdotal evidence of women who have difficulties with English being sanctioned repeatedly simply because they do not understand what the system requires of them. Because JSA is focused on getting people into any work regardless of claimants' skill level and experience, it is contributing to a growing pattern of women being over represented in low paid jobs with poor prospects from which they will struggle to progress. This is not just a waste of women's potential economic contribution, it also makes it more likely that they will need other forms of state support to survive and that their children will grow up in poverty. In some respects, the way in which the JSA regime is being implemented in relation to women risks directly undermining other government goals or strategies. For example, the policy of not telling claimants about the Domestic Violence (DV) Easement so that they will only benefit from it if they happen to find out about it appears to be at odds with the government's overall strategy for reducing the impact of domestic violence. The inquiry made 12 recommendations in all, including: Specialist advisers should be available to support claimants such as lone parents, women experiencing domestic and sexual violence and women with difficulties speaking and understanding English. These advisers could ensure that the policies already in place to protect vulnerable women are followed in practice. The conditions demanded of claimants should take sensible and appropriate account of the impact of caring responsibilities, language barriers and the impact of domestic and sexual violence. Claimants should be told about policies in place to take account of the specific needs of lone parents and of people experiencing domestic or sexual violence. All claimants should receive a thorough diagnostic interview after three months of claiming JSA, to ensure they are receiving the support they need to move into sustainable, quality employment and are not being required to take up activities, at a cost to the public purse, that make little or no contribution to their job search. Further research is needed into: The reasons that sanctions are overturned, as the high proportion of sanctions overturned at appeal indicates a considerable misapplication of sanction referrals. What happens to the 'hidden group' – those who are sanctioned and then do not move into known employment or continue to claim benefits. This group, especially the women within it, appear to be particularly vulnerable to exploitation, and the lack of knowledge about what happens to them is of grave concern. It is also likely to have a distorting effect on figures about claimants moving 'off benefits'. The extent of financial hardship caused by benefit sanctions, including in relation to food and fuel poverty and the impact of sanctions on child poverty and development (as suggested by the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee report, 'The role of Jobcentre Plus in the reformed welfare system,' January 2014). What happens to claimants after they have been sanctioned, in order to assess the efficacy of sanctions and understand their long-term impact in a UK context. The inquiry's chair, Amanda Ariss, said: "It is deeply worrying that a benefit that exists to support us all if we find ourselves out of work is putting vulnerable groups of women and their children at risk of unnecessary financial hardship, mental and physical ill-health and, in extreme cases, exploitation and abuse. "This makes no sense," Ariss continued. "These women are not being provided with the support they need to move into work, which would benefit the women themselves, their families and the wider economy. "Instead they are forced to meet conditions that are sometimes close to impossible, with the constant threat of sanctions should they slip up. "It doesn't have to be this way," she pointed out. "With some modest changes to the design and implementation of JSA we could have a system that supports women to move into quality, sustainable work." |
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