Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to encourage children to report sexual abuse to Childline or similar organisations.

It is essential that children suffering any form of abuse are encouraged to speak out. The NSPCC receives grant funding from the Department for Education to support ChildLine and the NSPCC helplines. £11.2 million has been provided from 2011 – 2015.

NSPCC and ChildLine reach out to children through a wide range of media channels, and each service runs targeted campaigns on safeguarding issues including raising awareness of sexual abuse, and the need to report it.

Recent campaigns such as the NSPCC ‘underwear rule’ and the ‘Zipit’ campaign focused on helping both children and adults to be aware of physical and virtual (online) abuse.