By Emily Caulkett-
West Mercia Police will be delivering a campaign designed to raise awareness and prevent Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE). National Child Exploitation Awareness Day, which takes place on Saturday 18 March, encourages everyone to think about, identify and speak out against child exploitation.
The force will be reinforcing its commitment to help protect children and young people from exploitation which takes several different forms .
Coercion, manipulation, or deception are among the main forms of exploitation.
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Finding out your child has been sexually exploited can be distressing and you might not know what to do next. Young people often trust their abuser and don’t know that what’s happening is wrong or are unable to tell anyone due to fear, intimidation and violence. We have advice to help you keep children and young people safe from sexual exploitation.
Child sexual exploitation (CSE) is a type of sexual abuse. When a child or young person is exploited they’re given things, like gifts, drugs, money, status and affection, in exchange for performing sexual activities. Children and young people are often tricked into believing they’re in a loving and consensual relationship. This is called grooming. They may trust their abuser and not understand that they’re being abused.
Children and young people can be trafficked into or within the UK to be sexually exploited. They’re moved around the country and abused by being forced to take part in sexual activities, often with more than one person. Young people in gangs can also be sexually exploited.
Sometimes abusers use violence and intimidation to frighten or force a child or young person, making them feel as if they’ve no choice. They may lend them large sums of money they know can’t be repaid or use financial abuse to control them.
Anybody can be a perpetrator of child sexual exploitation, no matter their age, gender or race. The relationship could be framed as friendship, someone to look up to or be romantic with.
Children and young people who are exploited may also be used to ‘find’ or coerce others to join groups can happen in person or online. An abuser will gain a child’s trust or control them through violence or blackmail before moving onto sexually abusing them. This can happen in a short period of time.
When a child is sexually exploited online they might be persuaded or forced to send or post sexually explicit images of themselves film or stream sexual activities have sexual conversations.
Once an abuser has images, video or copies of conversations, they might use threats and blackmail to force a young person to take part in other sexual activity.
They may also share the images and videos with others or circulate them online.
Gangs use sexual exploitation to exert power and control for initiation to use sexual violence as a weapon. Children or young people might be invited to grooming the victim is frequently seen as a precursor to later exploitation. Often the young person does not know they are being exploited.
Within West Mercia Police, we have teams of dedicated and specialist officers tackling child exploitation, including a specialist team which targets offenders who are actively engaging in Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA).
Detective Inspector Matt McNelis said: “Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse is impacting our communities like never before. The National Crime Agency estimate that up to 830,000 people in this country pose a sexual risk to children.
The Internet Watch Foundation confirms that since 2019 they have seen a 1058% increase in the number of webpages depicting the sexual abuse of 7-10 year olds. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) reported in December 2022 that online grooming had increased by 84%.
“West Mercia Police is committed to preventing and detecting online sexual exploitation and abuse. We work closely with partners in local authorities as well as charities and academic bodies to constantly improve our response so that we can effectively target criminals online and protect children.
We utilise the Child Abuse Image Database (CAID) to identify victims and track offenders not just in this country but across the world. We work covertly with Regional Organised Crime Units across UK to proactively target child sex offenders and we utilise the latest digital investigation techniques to obtain evidence to prosecute these vile individuals.
“This week the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Team (OCSET) is intensifying its activity and will be conducting operations across the force area in order to safeguard children and protect communities. If you have information that could prevent a child being abused or that could lead to the arrest of a child sex offender then please get in touch.”
The report concerns about CE including CSE visit the Tell Us About section on our website