YESTERDAY’S arrests may have shocked Oxford but for experts it was part of a disturbing increase in the sexual exploitation of children.

Over nine months last year, 15 British girls and a further 38 from other nationalities were identified by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre as being sexually exploited, while children’s charity Barnado’s said it dealt with 1,098 children who had been groomed in 2010 – an increase of four per cent.

Reports from both organisations detail how abusers groom their victims.

The report from CEOP, the lead agency for tackling the sexual exploitation of children revealed: “Child sexual exploitation is a complex crime.

“Perpetrators often act in network, grooming victims to believe they are in a genuine romantic relationship before sexually exploiting them.

“Some cases involve an element of trafficking, where a victim is taken from their place of residence to another town or city within the UK for the purposes of sexual exploitation.” All the victims in the report were girls and chief executive Peter Davies said: “Our report showed that child sexual exploitation affects children of many different backgrounds across the country.”

Barnado’s report, Puppet On A String, said trafficking was becoming more common and more organised.

It highlighted cases where girls are groomed, often by a younger man, and then passed on to older men.

Barnardo’s chief executive Anne Marie Carrie said: “Too many children from all walks of life can so quickly be caught up in a world of drugs, violence and sex – this is a sickening slur on our society and we must do all we can to end it.

“Wherever we have looked for exploitation we have found it. But the real tragedy is we believe this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Some reports and politicians have focused on the ethnicity of abusers, with children as young as 11 said to have been targeted by mainly Asian staff in fast food outlets in Blackpool and Asian men held to be ringleaders of a Derby gang, jailed for grooming girls as young as 12.

But Ms Carrie said that while ethnicity was an issue in some geographical areas, it would be misleading and dangerous to view it as the only determining factor.

Oxfordshire MEP Catherine Bearder believes no community can afford to be complacent.

She said: “Trafficking is happening in our communities. We must be the eyes and ears for the police.

“There may be other people in the community who have been affected and I would urge them to come forward and seek help.”

The MEP has been spearheading a campaign aimed at raising awareness of the problem of trafficking in our towns and cities. On Monday she is opening a training seminar on human trafficking being held at Oxford Brookes University.

Esther Davidson, from Oxford Community Against Trafficking (OXCAT), said: “When trafficking was exposed in Oxford last year, our city was shocked that it could happen here.

“We now have to face the fact that modern slavery takes place in our community, and it involves children. Yes, criminals are at work, but they are also exploiting demand for sex with under-age children.”