Community Life

Thousands of children go missing in this country each year and campaigners say, the vast majority of these children will have been abused in some way.

Croydon has the largest numbers of children in the capital and so, it’s probably fitting that the South London borough will be the first to trial a new initiative to deal with missing children particularly those who’ve been sexually abused.

‘Barnardo’s Croydon Arch and Miss U2’ Service is London’s first joined up service specially working with young people aged 12 to 17 yrs, who go missing and who are at risk of, or who are being abused, through sexual exploitation.

Jane Semeonoff

The initiative is being supported jointly by children’s charity Barnardo’s, MET Police and Croydon Council. 

The project will also work closely with other agencies like the education department and the voluntary sector to provide a one stop shop for these vulnerable young people.

Jane Semeonoff is the borough’s Quality Assurance Manager for Children Young People and Learners. She told the BBC that after conducting an 18 month experiment on the level of missing children in the borough, her worst fears were realised.

“We’ve known that there must be a sexual exploitation problem … so, I simply asked people to refer to me the sort of children who had a cluster of the signs and symptoms and we got fifty referrals within a year.

I think it’s quite shocking the age at which some children start to go missing. I think the youngest we’ve had has been 8 years old”, explains Jane

widespread problem

Sadly according to the NSPCC this issue is extremely widespread and the numbers of children who come forward is just the tip of the iceberg.

Croydon is hoping by pulling in all the agencies together under one roof, this multi-agency approach will prove to be as successful as the current provisions for tackling domestic violence.

Do you know of a child who’s been abused? And do you think this method of working is a good/bad idea?

Email your views and comments to evadney.campbell@bbc.co.uk