The Guardian’s findings about the extent of sexual abuse in schools require an urgent, calibrated response. Data revealing multiple rapes committed each year on school premises in England and Wales is hard to comprehend. Yet this is what freedom of information requests to police forces, covering the period from 2021 until last year, have revealed. As well as the severity of the offences, the youth of many of the victims is disturbing. More than 8,500 sexual offences at or near schools were committed against under-13s, most of them girls.
Data about perpetrators contains gaps, including their age and sex. While the overwhelming majority of such acts are carried out by boys, we don’t know the exact proportion, nor if there is an age gap between those carrying out abuse and those being targeted. Only 33 out of 43 police forces shared their data, meaning that large areas including Scotland are not represented. But whatever the exact details, and allowing for the fact that these are reports, not convictions, the findings are deeply dismaying.
The suggestion by the acting chief constable Becky Riggs, who leads on child protection and abuse investigation for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, that the figures could reflect an increased willingness to report sexual abuse rather than more abuse taking place, must be taken seriously. At the same time, an unknown number of assaults continue to go unreported. Exact comparisons with the past are not possible since there is no equivalent dataset. What can be said, 10 years after a committee of MPs recommended that ministers should make sexual abuse in schools an “immediate policy priority”, is that the problem has not gone away; some experts believe that it is getting worse.
The response to the problem so far has relied on three main tools. One is the promotion of sex and relationships education. The scale of image-based abuse in schools requires further investigation, but Monday’s warning of a huge rise in AI child sexual abuse material globally points to the need for a curriculum that keeps abreast of technological change. The second tool is online safety laws including age verification, tighter restrictions on pornography, and the pledge by Sir Keir Starmer’s government to place smartphones off-limits for under-16s. The third is the criminal justice system, and ongoing efforts to improve the way that police and prosecutors deal with victims.
Ministers will need all these to work if they are to have any chance of meeting their goal of halving violence against women and girls. But acute resource and capacity problems are hampering courts and prisons, while pornography regulation needs to be enforced as well as discussed. While campaigners are hopeful, effects need to be measured. In relationships education, good intentions must not be confused with effects. To make a difference, schools need investment, training and evaluation.
This problem cannot be left to teachers to deal with; parents should also discuss these issues with young people. And politicians will have to be brave. The focus on sexual crimes by rightwing and far-right parties in many countries places liberals in a difficult position, with some fearful that by talking about them, they risk adding to a narrative that sows discord and scapegoats immigrants. The abuse of children by other children is an upsetting subject, but looking away is the worst of all options. As a society, we owe it to young people to deal with it.
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