---

Safeguarding Children (Sexual Exploitation)

We would all agree that this challenge will not go away and that it is not a simple problem for which there are simple answers. Since 1997, the Government have been determined to address the very complex challenges of sexual exploitation. We must consider what we do when such challenges come from within a family or are posed by a known family friend or associate. Social workers have to strike a very delicate balance between keeping children with their families, or, as the hon. Gentleman says, taking them into care. What are the protections there? The problem is a global evil. He and other hon. Members are right when they say that we need a much wider response. It is important that we correctly balance the mechanisms in the UK. We must recognise that we still have a long way to go. I will not stand here and say that the problem is all sorted, because, patently, it is not. Complex personal and interpersonal relationships exist within families. Moreover, we must consider why and how a young child comes to be trafficked to the UK and what we should do then. Early identification is key to protecting vulnerable children. As the hon. Gentleman and others said, the Department must work closely across Government and with local government and those responsible for delivering the services to develop clear help and support to the front-line staff who can take the work forward. The hon. Gentleman said that the national referral mechanism enables us not only to do that but to collect the important information that is necessary. The hon. Gentleman mentioned foster carers and the need for diversity. I also heard what the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said about private foster care, but I shall take that away with me. Local authorities are required to ensure that they have the necessary number of carers, including from minority ethnic groups, to meet the local need. The hon. Member for Totnes touched on Heathrow and the report in The Guardian—that was truly worrying, but it is now being investigated—but Hillingdon council, for example, is trying very hard to recruit foster parents from its Chinese community, for precisely the reasons that he mentioned. The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole spoke about the removal of children from the UK. I am sure that they know already that no child can be removed from the country until they reach the age of 18, when a decision will be taken on their asylum. However, I take the hon. Gentleman's point about the careful consideration of young people's needs when they reach the age of 18. He also mentioned the question of age determination and the problems of documentation being destroyed and of people trying to get young people into the country. Ultimately, children's services child protection officers must make the sometimes very difficult decision about a child's age. What happens to those young children is crucial. When they enter this country, they must feel that they are in a safe, secure and protected environment. That must be achieved as quickly as possible, for all the reasons that the hon. Gentleman mentioned—the pressure to run away from protection, for instance. They will need intensive, one-to-one support and perhaps translation services. We must also work to ensure that they—and their families back in their original homes—are protected. He is right about that. We must strike a difficult balance between not locking them up—that will hardly build up the trust and feelings of safety required to make progress—and protecting them from falling prey to the people who trafficked them. The hon. Gentleman's point about guardians ad litem has been made before, but the case remains to be made for why such guardians would make a difference, given that social work and key personnel advisers are already in place to support these young people. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham referred to Gatwick, which, along with Heathrow, is an example of the type of intensive work that we are trying to draw together. Considerable progress has been made over the past 12 months, but much remains to be done. As far as we can tell, from what we have seen over the past 12 months, including the increasing amount of data collected through the referral mechanism, very few young people have disappeared from care. However, we are trying, with all our energies, to find those who have disappeared. I am sure that hon. Members will not pretend for a minute that, for whatever reason, no young people will run away from the place of safety that we feel would serve their best interests, but we must ensure that it is a rare occurrence. The question of trafficked young people must be set in the context of the wider agenda. We must be more prepared to discuss the domestic violence, sexual abuse and exploitation that we see across society. As I told the hon. Member for Totnes, I do not agree with the picture of despair that he paints, but I appreciate people's reluctance to talk about relationships and appropriate behaviours and how we should deal with the problem. I had the privilege yesterday of meeting some young men and women from Barnardo's, who had been brought to the House to discuss with me what it was like for them as children to be part of a family where there was domestic violence and abuse. We also spoke about what we needed to do, as well as working with young children intensively, to ensure better relationships; we said that education should to give them a better and frank understanding of what is wrong or inappropriate behaviour. Indeed, as the hon. Gentleman said, great steps have been made by the Government in arranging sexual assault referral centres and the work now being done on the training of personnel. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham raised the question of the trafficking that can result from large international events and the particular vulnerabilities in South Africa, as we move towards the World cup. He will be aware of this, so I shall not recite it, but we protect those of our citizens who go elsewhere. Trafficking is still an offence here, whether or not it is an offence in the country where it is committed, and we will prosecute on the evidence. The hon. Gentleman raised another important point, and I want to give him a modicum of reassurance. It is important at all such events—the World cup is a classic example—that Governments speak to one another about our experience and the types of support that we offer, to ensure that young people in particular, but also women in general, are protected. We should not leave unchallenged the clear profit that traffickers seek to make at such events. I shall certainly continue to take that forward. This has been an important debate, and as the new Minister, I am grateful to the hon. Member for Totnes; it is an extremely quick way of getting a full idea of the breadth of issues on the subject. I absolutely take the point made by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham about the challenge of working across government on the matter. I say to him and to the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole that this is not an issue that I shall have to deal with on my own. I will of course be accountable for Government action, but Ministers working together will set the correct standard of debate in this country and help us to achieve the objectives that the hon. Member for Totnes seeks. Child exploitation and sexual abuse are always unacceptable. We will pursue the issue. We will protect those children. We will prosecute whenever we can. We will step up to the plate and do our duty, seeking a global response to the trafficking of young children and women around the world—and to those who seek to make a profit from them.