Stolen childhoods
It’s been over a year since the town of Rotherham made headlines across the world. A damning report that was ignored by the police in 2006 finally emerged last year. Some of the 1400 children who were abused have bravely spoken out about their experiences. The sad outcome to this is the fact that these children were not listened to. Many girls reported the perpetrators to the police but apparently many of those reports were unrecorded. Greater Manchester Police say that they were driven by targets and that child sexual exploitation wasn’t one of them, instead their priorities were burglaries and vehicle crime. One can hardly make a comparison between exploiting a child and stealing a car. It’s such a shame that police are blinded by targets and fail to prioritise in a sensible manner. Never mind the stolen cars, what about the thousands of stolen childhoods? It’s not easy for survivors to come forward and speak about traumatic experiences. Survivors deserve to be listened to, s