Julian Smith, the MP for Skipton, explains his reaction to shocking revelations about child sex abuse in the town.

IT WOULD be easy to assume that our beautiful, mostly tranquil corner of Yorkshire is somehow immune from the horrendous cases of child abuse that have emerged in Rotherham and across Britain.

However, former Skipton resident Ruzwana Bashir’s heartbreaking article in the Guardian, giving her account of the sexual abuse she and others suffered within Skipton’s Pakistani community, shows how these crimes are in fact happening on our doorstep.

Over the summer, I helped organise a Government conference on female genital mutilation and forced marriage. Some might assume that these crimes take place only in foreign countries far from Craven and perhaps in the UK’s larger cities, but to those women living in Skipton who have been coerced into marriages as young girls, these are experiences that are very real.

My campaign, backed by the Craven Herald, aims to find out the extent of child abuse, not only within Skipton but across my constituency. Everyone has a role to play in protecting our children, which is why I will be meeting victims, schools, doctors, councillors, religious groups and the public bodies in North Yorkshire with responsibility for child protection.

In parallel with these meetings, I will be talking with charities who help victims of child abuse, whether they provide counselling or guide them through the court process. Support for victims must improve and I will do everything I can to ensure that funding is available to ensure the best possible support networks are in place.

The Government has launched an overarching inquiry into child sexual abuse in Britain. But reports are not going to change things on their own. We need to take the lead in our own community.

Who do you know who could be suffering from abuse? Who do you know who may have suffered in the past? How do we pick up those at risk early and how do we give victims, boys and girls, whatever their age or background, the confidence to contact the police and then support them as they rebuild their lives?

Fear has produced a cloak of silence – victims afraid to speak out for fear of not being listened to and not receiving proper support, families closing rank and authorities perhaps reluctant to take action for fear of upsetting communities. This has to end and it is the responsibility of all of us to help to end it.