Online child sexual abuse at record high levels
- A report by the Internet Watch Foundation found that children as young as three and six-years-old are victims of self-generated child sexual abuse.
- This is when perpetrators groom and coerce children into creating images and videos of themselves which the offender records and shares on the web.
- The IWF reports a 374% increase in this type of crime over the past two years, with some victims being groomed for weeks and others exploited within minutes.
- You can read the full story on ITV’s website.
Children as young as 10 subjected to full strip searches by Met Police
- Figures show that children between the ages of 10 and 12 have undergone full strip searches by the Metropolitan police.
- Nearly 600 under-18s have been subject to strip searches where intimate parts were exposed between 2018 and 2020.
- The figures were obtained amid the controversy over the case of Child Q, a 15-year-old black schoolgirl, who was strip-searched without an appropriate adult present.
- You can read the full story on the Evening Standard‘s website.
Planned Unite strike action to impact vulnerable youths
- Strike action by Council and Housing Executive staff began yesterday and may last for up to two weeks.
- Unite workers in the Education Authority are set to go on strike from today, with special schools and some school transport expected to be hit by disruption.
- The Education Authority says it is disappointed that vulnerable children will be impacted the most after a request for special school staff and bus drivers to be exempt from striking was refused.
- You can read the full story on the Belfast Telegraph’s website.