Child sexual exploitation the new 'social norm', finds report

Child sexual exploitation is becoming the new "social norm" in some areas of Greater Manchester, according to a report by Labour MP Ann Coffey.

In some neighbourhoods, vulnerable young girls are pressured by gangs, with adults allowing their homes to be used for drinking, drug-taking and sex, she says.

Coffey, a former social worker and now MP for Stockport, suggests the norm has been fuelled by an "explosion of explicit music videos and the normalisation of quasi-pornographic images".

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She says "sexting, selfies, Instagram and the like have given rise to new social norms in changed expectations of sexual entitlement, and with it a confused understanding of what constitutes consent".

Tony Lloyd, the police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester, commissioned the report following the Rochdale grooming scandal, for which nine men were jailed two years ago.

Coffey spoke to many young people from the area, including victims of sexual exploitation. A group of girls at one school she visited described a "worrying" amount of unwanted attention and touching from men on the street, she says.

"I get approached all the time when I am in school uniform," one schoolgirl told the MP. Others said they would not report it because it happens so much they cannot see the point.

The Coffey Inquiry found that there was a lack of trust between police and young people and recommends that all police response officers undergo child sexual exploitation training.

Coffey says police should give more formal talks in schools, as well as organise informal meetings with schoolchildren to discuss the dangers of exploitation.

She adds that the scale of sexual exploitation, including that of young boys, is likely to be bigger than previously thought and says her observations will make "painful reading" for those who hoped that Rochdale was an isolated case. "This is a real and ongoing problem," she says.

There are currently 260 'live' Greater Manchester Police investigations into child sexual exploitation, with at least 18 cases involving multiple perpetrators. Yet out of 13,000 reported cases of major sexual offences against under-16s in the past six years in Greater Manchester, there have been only 1,000 convictions.

Sir Peter Fahy, chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, told The Guardian that he welcomed the recommendations and said that specialist training was already being rolled out in the force.