Hampstead and Highgate MP Tulip Siddiq

OPINION by TULIP SIDDIQ MP

INTERNATIONAL Women’s Day feels more poignant than ever this year, in light of local and worldwide events.

The horrific Epstein stories about vulnerable girls being exploited and abused has shocked the world.

The treatment of Iranian women by their own authorities has been equally difficult to read about.

Locally, I’ve been dealing with the horrific sexual abuse case at a nursery in my constituency where for seven years an employee was preying on babies and girls.

Last month, Vincent Chan was sentenced for his unimaginable crimes. It is every parent’s worst nightmare to discover that their child has been subject to abuse.

For this to have happened in a nursery, where parents trusted their children would be safe, is truly abhorrent.

Tragically, many families will likely never know whether their child was a victim.

The lack of evidence about what was happening in the nursery, in the rooms where Chan was in charge, means that some parents are left only with questions.

The prime minister has agreed to meet the affected parents and this week I took the brave parents to meet Bridget Phillipson MP, the education secretary, and Jess Phillips MP, the minister for safeguarding.

The parents set out their recommendations, aimed at ensuring early years settings are closed to predators, and that concerns raised by parents and whistleblowers are identified early, escalated appropriately and independently scrutinised.

I am pleased that the government is committed to reviewing early years safeguarding, especially when it comes to big chains, and the new expert panel to examine the role of CCTV in protecting children.

While the conversations are moving in the right direction, the urgency of this crisis cannot be overstated.

Every day that passes without mandatory CCTV and strengthened oversight is a day where another child remains vulnerable.

We cannot wait for the next tragedy to prove what we already know: that transparency is a fundamental necessity for child protection.

I am calling for a statutory commitment to mandate cameras in all nursery settings to ensure no more families endure the pain of the unknown.

I look forward to working with the education secretary in the coming weeks to turn these discussions into concrete changes.

I know the government is prioritising violence against women and girls, and has taken some vital steps in recent months.

For example, I am proud that there will be new measures in schools to protect the next generation of girls from violence and steer young boys away from harmful misogynistic influence.

Furthermore, soon all police forces in England and Wales will have dedicated rape and sexual offence investigation teams to catch vile perpetrators. And, under new plans, social media companies will be told they must remove distressing intimate images within 48 hours of them being flagged by a victim.

I am grateful for the work the government is doing but I feel there’s an urgency to accelerate the strategy on this before more lives are affected.

Having been an MP for 10 years, I’ve dealt with cases of domestic violence, homelessness, child abduction and imprisonment.

I thought I had seen it all, but dealing with this case of sexual abuse and violence against tiny baby girls has shown me a different side of cruelty.

It has made me even more deter­mined that whether it’s for my very small constituents or whether it’s for the hundreds of girls, I’m determined to do my part to ensure that this, never again, happens.

Tulip Siddiq is the MP for Hampstead and Highgate