The emergence of political priority for addressing child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom

Guest editorial

“…To an extent, the evidence for contextual interventions is more established in some countries outside of the UKfor example, in North Americawhere peer and school interventions to reduce violence perpetration have been the subject of randomised control trials (Foshee et al, 2014). However, a recent study on the developing response to child sexual abuse in the UK (Shawar et al, 2022) illustrated that the rapid policy changes seen here have not been reflected in many other countries who also have concerns about the exploitation and abuse of young people. As such we have some countries in which the evidence of contextual interventions has been established but the policy framework to hold and sustain them is under-developed; in the UK the opposite is the case.…”