Children: Abuse

(asked on 11th December 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the trends in the level of reports of spiritual and ritualistic abuse against children since 2017.


Answered by
David Johnston Portrait
David Johnston
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This question was answered on 18th December 2023

The National Working Group on Child Abuse Linked to Faith or Belief has been renamed as the National Working Group on Abuse Linked to Accusations of Witchcraft and Spirit Possession. It is independent and the department is invited as an observer.

The government is determined to protect children from this abuse, as from any other form of abuse. Where there are concerns that any child is at risk of, or has suffered significant harm, these should be reported to the police or to local authority children’s social care who should take action to safeguard and promote their welfare, following the actions outlined in the ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ guidance.

In the Children in Need statistics for the year ending 31 March 2023 published in October 2023, faith-based abuse was identified as an assessment factor in 2,140 episodes of need. Episodes of need are when a child is referred to children’s social care services and is assessed as being in need of children’s social care services. It should be noted that not all episodes of need have assessment factors recorded, but this has improved over time. Nonetheless, there can be differences in the recording practices between local authorities. Therefore, this data should be treated with caution and should not be taken to represent the national prevalence of particular issues.

The government’s ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ strategy, published on 2 February 2023, set out plans to reform children’s social care, including a commitment to deliver a decisive, multi-agency child protection system for all children.

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