ABSTRACT
The Rights of the Child are fundamental to understanding and intervening in abuse, with emphasis on the child's voice and participation with services and agencies. The Convention of the Rights of the Child, signed up to by most nations, is therefore an important step in at least ensuring that child safeguarding is accepted internationally in principle. Children are raised in very different contexts and conditions from those in the UK – sometimes harsher due to poverty or third world conditions, sometimes better due to stable family and community settings in child-centred cultures. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 which formed the key plank of the sexual abuse criminal legislation was important in terms of contemporary issues in including online grooming of a child for the purpose of sexual abuse for the first time. Technology and social media has had a varied role in the child abuse domain. Whilst much is educational, entertaining and socially empowering, it can also represent harm to children.
