Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to publish her Department's paper on group-based child sexual exploitation.

Child sexual abuse is a despicable crime and the Government is committed to keeping children and young people safe from all forms of abuse.

On 15 December 2020 the Home Secretary published a paper titled ‘Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation: Characteristics of Offending’, which draws together insights from multiple strands of work conducted by the Home Office to better understand this type of offending.

The paper sets out the best available evidence on the nature of group-based child sexual exploitation, the characteristics of offenders, their networks and the context in which these crimes are committed. The paper can be found online at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/group-based-child-sexual-exploitation-characteristics-of-offending .

Further action and commitments to tackle this and other forms of child sexual abuse will be set out in the soon-to-be-published Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy.

This paper has been scrutinised by an External Reference Group, who provided constructive challenge on this complex issue. The Group was comprised of experts from academia and research, victims’ groups, third sector organisations, parliamentarians and representatives of the criminal justice system.