VCF – The Victoria Climbié Foundation UK welcomes the efforts of Sir Keir Starmer QC MP and Baroness Doreen Lawrence to introduce improvements to the criminal justice system, to ensure that it properly serves victims.

As an organisation addressing the rights and protection of children, VCF is concerned with the limitations of abuse currently being considered within the remit of the Victims of Crime Bill – and calls for ‘wider abuse’ to be included, to go beyond the current focus on child sexual abuse.

An EU directive for establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime, goes further to include human trafficking and child pornography.

VCF Co-Founder and Director, Mor Dioum is clear that “this is a significant step forward in supporting victims and witnesses of crime although we still have some way to go to achieve justice for all. In our view the EU directive does not go far enough to ensure that victims of child abuse, in all its forms, are catered for, and must be considered within domestic law.”

Victoria Climbié, Khyra Ishaq, Peter Connolly, Kristy Bamu, Daniel Pelka are examples of the many child abuse cases where the proposed law as it stands would not achieve its aims for family victims impacted by physical abuse or abuse linked to harmful practices.

VCF will continue to lobby to ensure that the rights and protection of every child matters within the Victims of Crime Bill – and fully supports its introduction on 20 October 2015.