Sexual expolitation of children in Britain

This weeks news has seen much coverage and opinion on the nature and causes of child sexual exploitation, following Jack Straws remarks typifying young Asian men as perpetrators and white girls as victims. The charity Barnardo's has for many years been running projects in Britain to help young people who find themselves victims of this type of crime. Anne Marie Carrie, chief executive of Barnardo's stated in the Guardian, 17 January that such stereotyping is unhelpful, and that what is actually required is for sexual exploitation to be addressed as a child protection issue, with a national action plan, earlier identification and more robust evidence gathering and prosecution procedures to help protect children and punish offenders. Barnardo's published their report Puppet on a string: the urgent need to cut children free from sexual exploitation this week.