Week Of Awareness Against Child Sexual Exploitation

Campaigners working to tackle child sexual exploitation in Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire will come together this week to raise awareness.

'Not In Our Community' work with local agencies by going into schools to educate young people about the issue of child grooming.

All this week they'll be informing people about how they can help by looking out for the warning signs.

Campaign manager John Gilbert says child sexual exploitation is a big problem in our region. He told Viking FM:

“Being aware of sexual exploitation of young people and how you can spot the warning signs helps us to look out for each other. These can be things like if somebody is missing from home or care, through absences at school or an unusal or increased secretive behaviour on your mobile phone or internet. New friends may have come onto the scene.

"Child sexual exploitation as an issue is so much higher than it was before. Before people didn't quite know what it was and they thought it was something that happened elsewhere but certainly in our area there have been a lot of cases that have come forward in the past few months.

"The whole point of this campaign is that young people are not alone in this, they will be taken seriously. Certainly the challenges of other areas, you can see the reasons why victims might not have come forward so a big part of this campaign is reassurance.

"Child sexual exploitation operates in a different way to what we have seen in Rotherham and the gang culture that was there in the past but let's not kid ourselves, it does happen in this area and even if it didn't we should still be doing a campaign like this because prevention is very important. People are mobile and if you force people who are operating out of an area into somewhere else, they're going to be looking to do it."

Not In Our Community will also be working with Hull and East Riding's football community this week to raise awareness and John said:

“Partnering with the football community from grassroots all the way up to involvement from the Premier League is undoubtedly a huge boost to our very important campaign and helps start new conversations about how we can further protect young people against this evil crime.”

Steve Lazenby, East Riding County FA Welfare Officer said:

“Football has a responsibility to ensure a safe environment for all involved in the game, especially youth football and those that are vulnerable to child sexual exploitation.

“We are engaging with our clubs to raise the awareness of child sexual exploitation through our website and social media channels by encouraging use of the hashtag #notinourcommunity.”