Britain Has Failed Vulnerable Children for Too Long
A dormant but shocking scandal has regained the public’s attention. The UK needs to protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse.
Less talk, more action.
Photographer: Leon Neal/Getty Images
The scale of Britain’s child-exploitation scandal almost defies belief. Between the late 1980s and the early 2010s, thousands of young girls, mainly from disadvantaged communities and some in state care, were groomed, sexually abused and silenced, while the institutions meant to protect them often did nothing.
Despite a number of prosecutions and multiple inquiries, too little has changed. Now, as public attention resurfaces on the crisis — sparked in part by Elon Musk’s social media posts on the subject — the question is whether meaningful action will finally follow.