{"id":3218,"date":"2020-01-15T16:07:57","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T16:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/?p=3218"},"modified":"2023-03-10T11:11:08","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T11:11:08","slug":"child-exploitation-and-modern-slavery-its-a-gender-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/?p=3218","title":{"rendered":"Child Exploitation and Modern Slavery: It\u2019s a Gender Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modern Slavery \u2013 Adults<\/a><\/strong>; Child Exploitation<\/a><\/strong>; Child Abuse<\/a><\/strong>; Perpetrators of Child Abuse<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modern Slavery \u2013 Adults<\/a> <\/h1>\n\n\n\n

You will\nrecall the annual CPS VAWG reports. These are the reports in which Violence\ndoes not mean violence, Women does not mean women, Girls does not mean girls,\nand conviction for a rape-flagged charge does not mean convicted of rape. VAWG,\nyou will recall, is a category of crime. The victims may be men or boys. The offence\nmay not be violence. You may think that there is an intention to mislead here. I\ncouldn\u2019t possibly comment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the categories of crime within the VAWG umbrella is Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking. You may think that this mostly involves women and girls being exploited as prostitutes. Well a lot of it does \u2013 but most does not. The 2018\/19 CPS VAWG report<\/a> includes data from the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) which records potential victims (you have to dig deep into the Appendices to find it). In 2018\/19 men and boys outnumbered women and girls by 52% (3,874 cf 2,544). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Modern\nSlavery & Human Trafficking category, between 2017 and 2018 the number of\nwomen and girls sexually exploited increased by 7% to 1,725. But the number of\nmen and boys exploited for their labour increased by 71%, to 3,525 \u2013 twice as\nmany. Bear in mind these data are within a report titled \u201cViolence Against\nWomen and Girls\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018\/19 there were 219 convictions for Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking. This is a larger number of convictions than in previous years.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July 2019, eight people \u2013 five men and three women \u2013 were convicted and sentenced to prison<\/a> for an average of nearly eight years each. The gang were described as the biggest modern-day slavery network ever exposed in the UK. Their victims were mainly Roma, from Poland. The gang came to the UK specifically to traffic their fellow countrymen. The number of witnesses (i.e., victims who were identified and testified) was variously reported as being between 80 and 92. Different reports estimate different total numbers of victims, most of whom were not identified, up to 440 in total. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How many of these 440 victims were men? I recall radio news reports at the time referring to the victims as \u201cpeople\u201d. But it would seem that all but one were men, to quote this BBC source<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The\nonly woman known to have been enslaved by the gang sits in a red parka, her\narms clamped between her legs, as she relates a trafficker’s threat to her<\/em>:…..”  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Child Exploitation<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The ONS have just released, for the first time, a compendium of data on child abuse: Child abuse extent and nature, England and Wales: year ending March 2019<\/a>. The associated data files are here<\/a>. The report combines data from several different sources. One of these is the CSEW (Crime Survey for England & Wales). This survey is completed by adults (16 and over) and hence relates to adults recalling abuse to which they were subject as a child (i.e., historic abuse). I have some major misgivings about such data, especially as it relates to relative male and female victimisation \u2013 of which more later. However, in this section \u2013 on child exploitation \u2013 the data is taken from the NRM<\/a>, which relates to contemporaneous reports of child victimisation. \u201cChild\u201d means someone aged 17 or younger. \u201cExploitation\u201d within the context of NRM data can be taken as synonymous with \u201ca victim of modern slavery\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 1\nshows the numbers of (identified) exploited children in the UK in calendar\nyears 2016, 2017 and 2018 by category. As for adults, it is the forced labour\ncategory which is largest and has increased fastest (by far). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Table 1 breaks\nthis down by sex (for 2018). Boys are ten times more likely to be involved in exploited\nlabour than girls. Girls are five times more likely to be involved in sexual\nexploitation than boys. But, overall, the number of exploited boys exceeds the\nnumber of exploited girls by 155%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are\nnot all trafficked children. 45% are UK nationals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether\nchildren or adults, it seems that modern slavery is a gender issue to the net disadvantage\nof males. Not something one hears the media promulgating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 1: <\/strong>from this Table 35<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Table 1:<\/strong> Number of children in UK referred to the NRM as potential victims of exploitation, by sex, year ending December 2018 (total regardless of nationality) \u2013 from this Table 36<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n Type\n of Exploitation<\/strong>\n <\/td>\n boys<\/strong>\n <\/td>\n girls<\/strong>\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Domestic\n servitude\n <\/td>\n 52\n <\/td>\n 44\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Labour\n exploitation\n <\/td>\n 1,805\n <\/td>\n 182\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Organ\n harvesting\n <\/td>\n 4\n <\/td>\n 0\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Sexual\n exploitation\n <\/td>\n 105\n <\/td>\n 532\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Unknown\n exploitation\n <\/td>\n 282\n <\/td>\n 122\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n TOTAL\n <\/td>\n 2,248<\/strong>\n <\/td>\n 880<\/strong>\n <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Child Abuse<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

I will focus\nhere on contemporaneous data, not testimony from adults reporting historic\nchild abuse (for reasons I will elucidate shortly). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number of children with a protection plan, by category of abuse which made it necessary, is shown against year in Figure 2. This is the same data as shown in histogram form at the head of my previous post Children in Need: Statistics (England)<\/a>. Figure 3 gives the breakdown by sex. Boys outnumber girls by 8%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest data on the number of children \u201cin care\u201d (i.e., looked after by a local authority) is 30,770 boys and 27, 450 girls (summing England and Wales from these Tables 23 and 31<\/a>), an excess of boys of 12%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 2<\/strong>: from this Table 13<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Figure 3<\/strong>: from this Table 14<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have drawn attention to these care and protection plan statistics in my previous post<\/a> but I do so again because I wish to point out the contrast with Figure 4. This plots the number of counselling sessions delivered by Childline as a result of abuse issues, by sex of recipient. There used to be twice as many sessions delivered to girls: now there are nearly four times as many. In view of boys outnumbering girls in the care and protection plan data, this is odd. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 4<\/strong>: from this Table 38<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Perpetrators of Child Abuse<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

This is the one case where I use data from adult reports of their abuse as children. The data in Table 2 was taken from NAPAC (National Association of People Abused in Childhood<\/a>). It indicates that there is little difference between perpetration of child abuse by mothers and fathers. Mothers were responsible for 24% and fathers for 27%. So parents as a whole account for about half of child abuse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the\nstriking thing about Table 2 is that adult women report well over three times\nas much historic childhood abuse as do adult men. This stands in stark contrast\nto the evidence from protection plans (Figure 3), where there are more boys\nthan girls. This may <\/em><\/strong>indicate that adult women are more likely to\nrecall childhood abuse \u2013 or that men are less likely to interpret childhood\nexperiences as abuse. For this reason I regard the gender-split of adults\nreporting historic abuse as unreliable, and this must apply to the CSEW data. (I\nwill be happy to hear alternative interpretations). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Table 2:<\/strong> from this Table 46<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n Alleged Perpetrator\n <\/td>\n Male \n Complainant\n <\/td>\n Female\n Complainant\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Mother\n <\/td>\n 200\n <\/td>\n 806\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Father\n <\/td>\n 242\n <\/td>\n 881\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Step-mother\n <\/td>\n 8\n <\/td>\n 15\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Step-father\n <\/td>\n 33\n <\/td>\n 243\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Others\n <\/td>\n 467\n <\/td>\n 1,217\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n TOTAL<\/strong>\n <\/td>\n 950<\/strong>\n <\/td>\n 3,162<\/strong>\n <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contents Modern Slavery \u2013 Adults; Child Exploitation; Child Abuse; Perpetrators of Child Abuse Modern Slavery \u2013 Adults You will recall the annual CPS VAWG reports. These are the reports in which Violence does not mean violence, Women does not mean women, Girls does not mean girls, and conviction for a rape-flagged charge does not mean […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-children"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3218"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4354,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions\/4354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}