The Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) is a core participant at the forthcoming virtual hearing of the Child Sexual Exploitation by Organised Networks investigation in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). The hearing will take place over two weeks, commencing on 21 September 2020. CWJ, a legal charity whose focus is on holding the state accountable around violence to women and girls, will be seeking to ensure complainants’ voices are heard and institutional witness evidence is properly tested.
On the afternoon of 21 September, Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC will be making an opening statement on behalf of CWJ, highlighting the charity’s key concerns including police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) failures in the investigation and prosecution of these horrendous crimes, as well as the outrageous criminalisation of victims of abuse and exploitation. CWJ has also fought hard to ensure that the Inquiry hears evidence in relation to the experiences of child sexual exploitation by girls from black and minoritised communities, whose experiences have been made invisible by a media narrative that portrays ‘grooming gangs’ as largely Asian men abusing white girls.
Harriet Wistrich, Director of Centre for Women’s Justice said,
“We have been perplexed by the Inquiry’s approach to the selection of six geographic areas, without significant history of organised abuse scandals, and the decision to focus on senior policing and local authority witnesses’ accounts of their own practice, without ensuring that victims and survivors from those areas can test their evidence. We have nonetheless sought to play a constructive role to ensure that this public hearing can offer sufficient scrutiny of institutional responses to this odious crime. We will be watching closely to ensure that the Crown Prosecution Service is held to account, and that meaningful recommendations are made to protect vulnerable girls and young women from CSE in the future.”
For further information about the Inquiry and public hearing please see https://www.iicsa.org.uk/news/inquiry-hold-public-hearing-child-sexual-exploitation-organised-networks. The evidence will be live-streamed and available from the IICSA website here: https://www.iicsa.org.uk/live