Question It!

03 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by Natasha in Question It, Researching Reform

Welcome to another week.

A thought provoking article in Open Democracy has criticised the way government uses child safeguarding policies.

In the piece, Jen Persson, who is the Director of defenddigitalme, an independent, non-partisan organisation which calls for fair, transparent, and safe use of children’s data in education, says the government is using child safeguarding laws and guidelines as a way to access children’s private information round the clock. She also calls out the lack of transparency in relation to who is accessing this data, for what purpose and which government departments are being given the information.

Our question this week then, is this: have you had personal experience of government departments taking information from your children which you believed to be protected, in the name of safeguarding?

Questions

BBC One, Tonight: The Betrayed Girls

03 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by Natasha in child abuse, child abuse inquiry, Researching Reform

≈ 6 Comments

Following on from Three Girls, Another documentary has been made about Rochdale and other towns where child sexual abuse seems to have been particularly high.

This time, the focus shifts away from child protection professionals, and instead looks at other people involved who knew about the abuse but did nothing to stop it.

Interviewees for the programme include social worker Sara Rowbotham, detective Maggie Oliver, Ann Cryer, Andrew Norfolk, Mohammed Shafiq and Nazir Afzal.

BBC One’s The Betrayed Girls airs tonight at 8.30pm. The programme is described as:
“[A] Documentary about the child abuse revelations in Rochdale and other towns. Featuring the harrowing testimony of the victims and the shocking truth from those who spoke out, this film reveals how it wasn’t just the professionals whose job it was to protect the girls who ignored their plight, but others did as well.”

You can watch a short trailer about the film here.

“We’d seen so many girls who had experienced this situation, we got to the point where we thought somebody’s going to have to die before anything is done.”