Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom

Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom includes the proliferation of indecent images, online exploitation, transnational abuse, and contact abuse. Efforts to prevent child sexual abuse include providing information to children and parents, and disrupting abusive situations. Perpetrators may act alone or as part of a group or street gang, and may either exploit vulnerabilities in children and young people or have long-standing sexual attraction to children. Underreporting of child sexual abuse and low conviction rates remain barriers to justice, among other factors. In the UK, high profile media coverage of child sexual abuse has often focused on cases of institutional and celebrity abuse, as well as offences committed by organized groups of sexual abusers.

Child sexual abuse has been reported in the country throughout its history.^[1] In about 90% of cases the abuser is a person known to the child.^[2] From the second half of the twentieth century, cases involving religious institutions,^[3] schools,^[4] popular entertainers,^[5][6] politicians,^[7] military personnel, and other officials have been widely publicised. Since the start of the 21st century, media coverage and political discourse has also increasingly covered child abuse rings or "grooming gangs" operating in towns and cities across the UK, most notably in what is now known as the grooming gangs scandal.^[8] Efforts to protect children from sexual abuse were recorded as early as the 11th century.^[9] Investigation and prevention of child sex abuse were impaired in the 21st century due to the impact of the government austerity programme.^[10]

In 2012, celebrity Jimmy Savile was posthumously identified as a prolific child sexual abuser over the previous six decades. Subsequent investigations, including those of Operation Yewtree, led to the conviction of several prominent "household names" in the media, allegations against prominent politicians, and calls for a public inquiry to establish what had been known by those responsible for the institutions where abuse had taken place. In July 2014, an Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was announced by Theresa May, then British Home Secretary, to examine how the country's institutions have handled their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse.^[11]