Telford child sex victims 'not surprised' by review findings
Victims of child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Telford say they are not surprised by the findings of a review into abuse carried out by grooming gangs in England and Wales.Baroness Casey's audit found the ethnicity of people involved was "shied away from" by authorities, which meant the scale of the issue could not be properly assessed.Victims Holly Archer, Kate Elysia and Scarlett Jones said they were seen "as a problem" at the time which was something that had to change.They welcomed a national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs, adding that survivors' experience had to be "at the heart of it all the way through".
"I'm not surprised by anything that I've read in her report," campaigner Ms Archer, who was raped in Telford when she was a teenager, told BBC Radio Shropshire."And I think as a society, not just in terms of professionals but the community in general, the way we were seen, not as children but as a problem, is something that I'd like to see changed for the future."The government asked Baroness Casey to carry out the audit, examining existing data and evidence on the nature and scale of group-based child sexual abuse, in January.
Her key findings prompted Prime Minister Keir Starmer to announce a national inquiry, saying he accepted the reports recommendations.Kate Elysia said while she was glad there was to be one, she was quite angry it was not done earlier and the government had to be pushed to act.She said she was also worried for victims who had to revisit their traumatic experiences. Ms Jones said the only way for change to happen and to "make the recommendations meaningful is to have survivor input".She agreed the collecting of data was flawed with ethnicity not recorded in two-thirds of cases, and questioned why the reporting of Asian grooming gangs and white ones was different. "If you're going to collect data then lets collect it all together, lets stop reporting as different things when actually they're all the same," she said.Police also needed to be prepared "to take that challenge on", Ms Archer said.Ethnicity of grooming gangs 'shied away from', Casey report says'Little people can make big waves' - sex abuse survivorTown now 'admirable model' in tackling child sex abuseBaroness Casey noted how victims had been referred to by some authorities at the time as the problem and were blamed for what happened.Ms Elysia said she was "absolutely disgusted" with the way adults in authority had treated the child victims."I was one of those once, and now I'm an adult and I also work for services and I can't believe people have been ignored, children have been ignored and treated the way that they have been treated," she said.She said people in the authorities at the time should have done more."They should be the ones who are able to step up and realise they should be doing the right thing."Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said between 800 to 1000 cases will be reopened as part of the inquiry.Both Ms Jones and Ms Archer said it must not lose sight of "local need" and the role Telford played so they are not "swallowed up" with other areas and what went wrong was heard.
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