Some UK adult sites ‘not doing enough to protect children’

  • Ofcom have released a report which said some smaller adult video-sharing sites, based in the UK, are not doing enough to stop children from accessing pornography.
  • The regulator said a number of smaller platforms do not have robust measures in place to verify a user’s age and prevent them from gaining access.
  • They highlighted one platform which said it had considered introducing age verification but decided that it would reduce the profitability of the business.
  • They also found that Twitch has failed to stop children accessing videos which are marked as “mature”.
  • Ofcom did, however, praise TikTok and Snapchat for making some progress in protecting younger users.
  • Find out more on the Independent’s and the Telegraph’s website.

Thousands of lone migrant children housed in hotels

  • A watchdog has warned that the Home Office is effectively running “unregistered children’s homes” in hotels in the UK.
  • 3256 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have arrived in hotels since the start of October last year.
  • The report said it is “most notable” that neither the Home Office nor councils where hotels are located “hold statutory responsibility for these young people”.
  • The report mentioned two cases where staff residing in the hotels had not been appropriately vetted by the Disclosure and Barring Service.
  • To read more, go to the Belfast Telegraph’s website.

Child sexual abuse victims ‘will feel cheated’ if report is not hard-hitting

  • A survivor of child sexual abuse has said victims will feel “cheated if the findings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse are not hard-hitting.
  • The report will consider 19 strands of the inquiry, including investigations into abuse in Westminster and the church.
  • It is due to be published today, Thursday 20th.
  • One victim hopes a mandatory reporting law will be recommended, meaning priests must pass allegations of child abuse to police even if made during confessions.
  • To find out more, please go to the Independent’s website.