How did children’s homes become centres of profit-making and abuse? | Sonia Sodha

The state has a duty to protect the vulnerable young, not simply entrust their care to the highest bidder

When we look back on the 2010s, the decade of Grenfell and Windrush, there will be plenty of contenders for what we as a society got most wrong. But among the most shaming is how long it took to expose the epidemic of child sexual exploitation by grooming gangs across a swath of British towns and cities. Thousands of children have had their lives blighted as a result of being passed around groups of men to be raped and sexually abused, while the adults supposed to be protecting them – police, social workers, councillors – turned a blind eye. Even as authorities were pledging to learn the lessons in towns such as Rochdale and Rotherham, still it went on in places such as Telford and Newcastle.

One in three homes operated by the two largest private providers were classed as inadequate or requiring improvement

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2tW4T5O