Charity worker tells committee child witnessed with petrol bomb in Derry ‘criminally exploited’  - video Dailymotion

Charity worker tells committee child witnessed with petrol bomb in Derry ‘criminally exploited’

Transcript

00:00You only need to watch the news to think about criminal exploitation of children.

00:03Look at the seven-year-old child in Derry who had a petrol bomb in his hand. Who provided

00:08that petrol bomb? So that's criminally exploiting that child. They're doing criminal activity

00:14on behalf of who? So a seven-year-old doesn't have access to a petrol bomb. Who provides that

00:20petrol bomb? We see it when children are being forced out to riot and are being offered, you

00:28know, there has been countless testimony and research done around this now about children

00:33who have basically been encouraged to riot to clear any debt that they owe to paramilitary

00:39organisations, organised crime groups, whoever it benefits. So this criminal exploitation can

00:45look like that. It can look like selling counterfeit goods. It can look like holding

00:49weapons or holding drugs. It can look like dealing drugs, cooking drugs. And then there's,

00:56they're given pennies because the risk is so massive but the reward, they're like thinking

01:01this is amazing when actually they're not a criminal mastermind, they're a child that's

01:06being coerced through whatever means. And as soon as they say, actually I don't want to do this,

01:11that's when, you know, the coercion changes its chin. It's not like we'll give you, you know,

01:15whatever £200 here or there. It changes to, well you'll do this or else, you know. We know

01:20where your mum lives. We know this. Because these people aren't operating in the shadows.

01:26These people are known members of the community. Like I, the people that I'm talking to, the young

01:30people I'm speaking to and the youth workers, like the dog's in the street now. Everybody says

01:34that phrase. So everybody knows. But the issue is the relationship, community's relationship with

01:40the police is so fractured and people are viewed as touts that they're not wanting to engage with

01:44police in that way. So police don't actually have evidence to then act upon this. So we're trying

01:49to go in as, you know, an organisation educating children, young people around these issues,

01:56gather this anecdotal evidence to then communicate with the police or communicate with researchers

02:01about what's happening so that we can make a bigger noise in different forums for these young

02:06people. If we're trying to advocate for their rights and also, if we're going to advocate for

02:15their rights and amplify their voice, then we need to, you know, we need to do that in the

02:20proper way and through the proper mediums. So yeah, this criminal exploitation, you know,

02:26if you look at the news, like I said, you'll see it.