Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to prevent the grooming and sexual exploitation of vulnerable young women.

The Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation: Progress Report, published in February 2017, announced a £40m package of measures to protect children and young people from sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking, and to crack down on offenders, including: £7.5m for a new, ground-breaking Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, which will develop evidence of what works to prevent child sexual abuse and exploitation; a £7m uplift in funding in each of the last two years for non statutory organisations which support the victims and survivors of sexual abuse; and £2.3m for the second phase of the successful Disrespect Nobody campaign, which raises young people’s awareness of healthy relationships.

On 28^th February the Home Office launched the Trusted Relationships Fund, which will provide grant funding to local authorities who wish to run initiatives to protect young people in their area from different forms of exploitation and abuse, including child sexual exploitation, county lines, and peer abuse. The fund is currently open for applications and successful projects will be announced in the summer.