Debate contribution: Troubles-related Sexual Crimes and Child Sexual Abuse

Debate contribution by Mrs Emma Little-Pengelly on 17 February 2026.

MLA

Mrs Emma Little-Pengelly

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

17 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Troubles-related Sexual Crimes and Child Sexual Abuse

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5395058

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome the opportunity to address the Chamber on a motion of profound importance. I begin by expressing my deepest sympathy to anyone who has experienced sexual abuse and crime. I have met victims of such crimes, and I am always struck by the impact of such trauma and inspired by the resilience and dignity that victims are able to manifest in the face of such evil. Victims deserve truth; they deserve justice; and they deserve to be treated with dignity, respect and compassion. The motion recognises the devastating and enduring harm caused by crimes of a sexual nature, including child sexual abuse. I really welcome the fact that, across the House, there is so much support for the motion, which is on an issue that has been in the shadows for far too long. Specifically, the motion calls on the UK Government to ensure that the proposed Legacy Commission provides a pathway for victims of Troubles-related sexual violence to seek a legacy investigation. It also seeks to ensure that crimes of a sexual nature, including rape and child sexual abuse, are included as separate qualifying criteria. Let me be clear that I speak on behalf of the Executive Office when I say that we fully support the motion. Whilst it focuses on the UK Government, which is where responsibility for the legislation will lie, it is important for us, as the Department with responsibility for supporting victims and survivors but also for ending violence against women and girls, to be here to respond to the motion and talk about issues that impact on people across Northern Ireland. The motion brings in a really important issue that has not been explored in the way that it needs to be explored. I pay tribute to the brave people who have stepped forward and campaigned on the issue. I pay tribute to Máiría Cahill for all that she has done in very difficult circumstances. I see, day in and day out, the abuse that she gets on social media and other platforms because she has the audacity to speak her truth — to speak out and to ask for these issues to be addressed. I thank all campaigners who step forward on this important issue and on the more general issue of sexual violence including child sexual violence. We have heard a little about that in the debate. Many good points have been raised. It is absolutely right that the important issue of sexual abuse is explicitly included in the legacy mechanisms. It has been kept in the shadows for far too long. Particular issues need to be examined, and I welcome the fact that a number of Members have touched on them. They include the abusive practice that created an environment in which women, children and anyone else who was abused felt that they could not go to the police or the authorities to get justice. They did not do so for fear of what members of the community — let us call them what they were: members of terrorist organisations — would do to them if they did. Sinéad McLaughlin said, poignantly, that reporting was impossible. The reality, of course, is that reporting was made impossible not by the victims but by those around them — very often, men — who sent clear messages that, regardless of the absolutely appalling criminal abuse against them, they could not seek justice. We heard references to human rights in the debate. That is really important because fundamental human rights — the right to a fair trial, and the right to be able to take the person who committed a crime to court and get justice — were denied to generations of people who were abused, particularly women but also others including children, because of the attitudes of organisations that were then imposed on people.

I will indeed.

I thank the Member for her contribution. All sexual abuse is wrong, and I will go into a bit more detail about what the Executive and the Department are doing. Let us call out clearly, however, that any sexual abuse is absolutely wrong. It is incredibly important that we deal with the range of issues that are referred to in the motion and call out the truth. There may not be a shared view across the Office on some of those matters, but, with the greatest respect, I can be very clear that, if we look back, we can see that that was not why the PSNI, the RUC and the authorities were not welcome. There was a campaign against state authorities going into areas — there was a political campaign, and different reasons were given — and the result was that many victims were denied justice.

Worse, those who perpetrated those crimes, which included child sexual abuse, were able to repeat the offences because they were not brought to justice and incarcerated for them.

I welcome the fact that Doug Beattie, in his opening remarks, said that all victims of sexual abuse should come forward to the PSNI for full investigation. Let me be clear: all perpetrators of abuse should absolutely face justice.

I will, but I want to make some progress.

All people who were abused need that abuse to be recognised, but, frankly, I fear that we are starting to go down a line of deflection and distraction. Given what was known at the time, what has subsequently come to light and what needs to be investigated, it was absolutely right that the Executive stepped up and did the historical institutional abuse inquiry. Kincora was looked at as part of that inquiry, and I advise the Member to read the report. With the greatest respect, trying in some way to justify issues that have come to light subsequently for a lack of reporting at that time within certain communities, given the pressure that was put on women not to report to the then RUC, is revisionism. It is not acceptable, and there has been consensus across this place about that. We need to focus on the motion, because it is on an issue of profound importance. As I said, everyone who has been a victim of sexual crime should report it. Every victim of sexual crime deserved and deserves full investigation. They deserve the perpetrator to be brought to justice. That is very much at the heart of our ending violence against women and girls strategy. It is not just about prevention but about supporting people to get justice. I welcome the fact that the Chief Constable and the PSNI are close partners with us in the Executive strategy of ending violence against women and girls. The PSNI is there because the Executive recognise and endorse the fact that the PSNI plays a critical role in supporting victims and helping them to get justice. Sexual crime is one of the worst violations of human dignity. Serious sexual offences strike at the heart of a victim's sense of self. They cause deep trauma. People from all backgrounds and of all ages, classes and ethnicities are impacted on by sexual crime; it happens across all cultures. We want to stamp it out, and we need to support victims. We are reminded of the impact of such issues in the work of the many strategies that we are driving forward. Supporting victims and survivors has been a central element of the Executive Office's work over many years. That support is currently provided through three key work streams: the strategy for victims and survivors, the strategy to end violence against women and girls and our work in Communities in Transition. In the strategy for victims and survivors, Ministers have committed to building a trauma-informed, victim-centred system of support that recognises the lifelong impact of sexual violence and the trans-generational nature of trauma. The strategy emphasises the needs of victims and survivors, including those affected by sexual abuse. That must drive our policy direction. The supporting services that the strategy offers are critical in addressing that trauma. A key element of the strategy's delivery is the victim support programme. Last year, nearly £8 million of funding was provided to improve the health and well-being of victims and survivors. The issue needs to be better integrated within our comprehensive needs assessment. As more information about abuse comes out, it will be important that we make sure that the help and support are there as well. We know that violence against women and girls cuts across all generations, all communities and all spheres in our society. It happens every day, everywhere, and impacts on how women and girls learn, live, work and socialise. The focus of the ending violence against women and girls strategic framework is on prevention, and we will continue to engage with partners on how to tackle the damaging attitudes and beliefs that can lead to that violence, abuse and harm. The Communities in Transition programme plays an important role in strengthening community resilience and safety in areas where paramilitary influence has historically inhibited the reporting of sexual abuse and access to support. Communities in Transition addresses child sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation through our area-based addressing exploitation projects. It is sad that such support is still needed, but we recognise that it is. I hope that, taken together, those three strategies demonstrate a little bit of the work of the Executive Office through many strands. The legacy of sexual violence is seldom confined to the past. It continues to shape lives in the present. Recent research commissioned by the Executive Office reinforced the fact that abuse has left a devastating imprint on many people here. As I said, victims deserve truth, acknowledgement and pathways to justice. I thank all Members for their contributions. We have heard different aspects feeding out from the motion, all of which deserve to be thoroughly examined. The motion rightly calls attention to one of the most overlooked aspects of the legacy of the Troubles. Although death and serious physical injury are well-recognised criteria in existing legacy structures, sexual offences, rape, sexual assault and child sexual abuse have historically been marginalised in the formal legacy processes. That is not because such crimes were rare but because they were hidden — hidden out of fear and shame, and hidden by coercion, community control, paramilitary dominance and a wider culture of silence. As Members know, victims of sexual violence often wait decades before being able to speak. That delay does not diminish the harm that they suffered; it makes it more imperative that the systems of today do not repeat the omissions of the past. For all the reasons that I have outlined, it is critical that the UK Government ensure that any proposed legacy legislation does not narrow or restrict recognition of, or support or pathways for, victims. They must ensure that offences of sexual violence, including child abuse, are not excluded from, nor their importance downgraded in, proposed legacy architecture. They must ensure that nothing is included in the proposals that could deny victims meaningful access to justice. Victims must not be ignored, and they must never be forgotten. The Executive Office recognises the gravity of sexual offences, particularly where they were committed in conflict-affected and coercive environments; the right of all victims to have their case considered in any legacy investigative system; and the need for the Troubles Bill to reflect the full spectrum of harms experienced during the conflict, not only those that resulted in death or visible physical injury. When the Troubles Bill was announced, the Secretary of State indicated that he hoped that the communities that were most affected by the conflict of the Troubles would see the Bill as a way forward in which they could have confidence. For communities to have confidence, they need reassurance — reassurance that they can seek justice for crimes of that nature by way of the proposed Legacy Commission; reassurance that they have not been ignored, dismissed or excluded, as so many have been in the past; and reassurance that we in the Assembly will support them on their journey. We have provided that support through funding for strategies and programmes, but we must also call those things out and show absolute and universal support for truth. It is entirely appropriate that the Assembly call on the UK Government to ensure that. I acknowledge the courage of all the victims and survivors who have carried their experiences over the decades, often in silence. Their persistence is the reason that we are debating the issue today. We owe them a debt of gratitude for the resilience that they have shown.

2,109 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:52 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification