Commercial Sexual Exploitation Multi-Agency Group minutes: September 2024

Attendees and apologies

Chair 

• Jeff Gibbons, VAWG Justice policy, SG

Attendees present

• VAWG Justice Policy, SG
• Human Trafficking Policy, SG
• Criminal Law, Practice and Licensing, SG
• Care Experience and Whole Family Wellbeing, SG
• Organised Crime Policy, SG
• the research lead on the previous SG commissioned lived experience engagement
• Police Scotland
• Ofcom (in an observer capacity)
• Women’s Support Project
• Public Health Scotland
• NHS GBV Network
• Women's Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre (WRASAC) Dundee and Angus
• Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities
• TARA
• SACRO
• COSLA
• European Network of Migrant Women

Apologies

• Skills Development Scotland
• Shakti
• JustRight Scotland
• VAWP Network
• Routes Out
• Amina
• Say Women
• SOHTIS
• The Improvement Service
• Child Protection Policy, SG 
• VAWG Equalities Policy, SG

Items and actions

Welcome and agreeing last meeting’s minute

The last meeting’s minute of 13 June 2024 had been agreed by members by way of correspondence prior to the September meeting.

Update on lived experience research and next steps

Following the lived experience research, there has been ongoing work to develop comic book style resources.

These resources will raise awareness of some of the circumstances/situations that can lead people to become involved in commercial sexual exploitation.

These have not yet been finalised but will be shared with members of the group to gather feedback.

Researcher is keen to engage and sense check resources with younger people to collate feedback from their perspective (as they may also be a useful resource for education practitioners).

Action – to follow up with Women’s Support Project to connect with women/youth groups.

CSE and migrant women’s experiences – update from the European Network of Migrant Women

The update from the European Network of Migrant Women included:

One of the amendments in the last year to the EU Anti-Trafficking Directive is identifying one of the purposes of trafficking is forced marriage (now a separate or aggravating offence) – intersecting with trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation.

There is also a new Directive on Violence Against Women – not applicable to the UK but important to have in mind what is happening at EU level.

The legislation that concerns prostitution and trafficking is extremely relevant to migrant women as a group.

There is often a misunderstanding of the links between prostitution and sex-trafficking from conversations with anti-trafficking policy co-ordinators.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls report was highlighted as making clear that trafficking cannot be considered without prostitution.

When speaking about a group of people (for example, women) who have come from a situation of war/conflict/forced displacement – they, by default, need to be viewed as potential victims of, not only trafficking, but various forms of exploitation and crimes – with the assumption of extreme vulnerability and abuse of power.

CSE Aware Survey on learning disability

The Women’s Support Project (WSP) provided an update to one of the developing areas of work around learning disability and gender based violence (GBV), referencing The Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities (SCLD) report published in 2023 which highlighted that women with learning disabilities are disproportionately at risk of GBV compared to their peers.

Anecdotally over the years there have been reports and concerns around women with learning disabilities becoming involved in different elements of CSE.

The WSP have since connected with SCLD and engaged with other organisations within the learning disability sector to undertake two focus groups with workers within the CSE support sector to create a survey.

There have been 32 responses to the survey on CSE/disability which flagged a lot of complexities. The scale of the reality of this issue is unknown as there may be differences in understanding and framing of CSE.

The WSP plan to produce a report following the survey (due to be available late October) with the aim to start exploration to collect evidence and a call to action.

Currently working with People First (Scotland) who are supporting WSP to develop easy reads for women.

16 Days of Action theme for this year is focussing on women with disabilities experiencing CSE with an event scheduled for 4 November 2024.

Scottish Government advised that the survey had been shared with adult disability policy and that it might be helpful to link in with these colleagues and adult support and protection policy as well.

Human Trafficking Strategy refresh update

The current Human Trafficking Strategy was published in 2017 and was reviewed last year with a decision to refresh.

Since December 2023 there has been engagement with stakeholders, lived experience groups and internal policy colleagues - looking at establishing points of contact widening out from the trafficking remit, alerting and involving others in the refresh.

Currently gathering information from engagement sessions - picking up again in October when there will be more opportunities for engagement with the aim to publish the refreshed strategy by December, followed shortly after by an action plan in early 2025.

Also in the process of producing an annual report due to publish December 2024 which relies on three action areas – supporting and protecting victims, disrupting perpetrator activity and prevention.

Care experience consultation on Moving on from Care into Adulthood

Update provided on the Scottish Government’s Care Experience consultation on care-experienced young people transitioning into adulthood - post 16 care policy.

Consultation launched on 11 July, running for 12 weeks and closing on 3 October. The aim of the consultation is to hear from those with care experience in order to get a sense of the improvements that can be made.

Additionally, conducting targeted engagement sessions for more in-depth conversations and to identify what support is missing for young people.

Action - share slides/links to various live consultations.

Recent CSE workshop on hub approach and next steps

On 6 September SG officials held a workshop with stakeholders from across the wider public and third sector, to further discuss the hub approach we have been considering, as part of an improved support pathway for women with experience of CSE - improving the links between mainstream and specialist services.

Whilst recognising and highlighting the challenges and concerns, most particularly around resource and capacity, there was broad recognition from attendees in the value of taking a collaborative approach that seeks to strengthen the co-ordination of services supporting women with experience of CSE.

Discussions focussed on understanding the benefits of a hub approach, consideration of areas/orgs that should be included, existing referral pathways that can be built on and overcoming barriers.

Next steps – to reflect on the valuable feedback from stakeholders and prepare an update for the Minister for Victims and Community Safety’s consideration.

Any other business

Request for members to contact secretariat with suggestions for future agenda items and/or themes for discussion.

Next meeting date TBC.

Secretariat to publish the revised terms of reference on the group’s webpage.