A major police effort has begun to prevent a Scottish "Rotherham-style" child sex exploitation scandal.

Police Scotland officers, along with health and social workers, have launched pilot projects to look at why youngsters in care run away to stop them falling in to hands of those who would groom them.

They will interview children found after being reported missing to find out where they were and who they were with.

Their aim is to look for evidence that youngsters, boys and girls, have fallen in to the hands of men who befriend them to use them for sex.

The move comes after major scandal in Rotherham where a gang of predatory men were found to be "brazenly" grooming runaways and care home girls as young as 11 for sex.

Some 1400 children are thought to have been exploited in the South Yorkshire town, mostly by men of Pakistani origin.

Police insiders stress Scotland is not immune to such behaviour, either by gangs or individuals, of any race.

The pilot project will focus on Dundee, Edinburgh and South Lanarkshire and will involve police, councils, NHS and charities.

Children between the ages of 14 and 16 are one of the biggest categories among the 32,000 missing persons reports filed in Scotland every year.

Some are frequent absconders from their homes, including in care and foster parents. There is real concern about their vulnerability to Rotherham-style gangs or predatory individuals.

Assistant Chief Constable Wayne Mawson, who is in charge of Missing Persons, said: "Return interviews, carried out when young people who have been reported missing have been found, or returned on their own, are crucial for many reasons.

"They help us understand why and where young people go, and reveal any other causes which may prompt their decision to leave looked after accommodation. It also helps if they go missing again. "

Mr Mawson stressed the importance of councils and care homes in looking at the issue.

He added: "The force is also working to build on the excellent work done to date, but also to create an agreement, nationally, about how we can work better together in carrying out effective return interviews, but also in building our understanding of why young people go missing.

"These are very often vulnerable young people and it is our duty, with our partners, to make sure we protect them by listening to them and taking action where it is needed.

"In the coming months, we will be piloting a partnership agreement between Police Scotland, local authorities and other third sector organisations to ensure that when young people go missing, we understand why, in order to prevent them repeating such behaviour in the future."

Police hope they can use the interviews to put together an intelligence picture of what makes children vulnerable.

They already say that going missing is one of the top four signs of vulnerability to child sex exploitation.

Police Scotland this week formally unveiled a national child abuse investigations unit in Livingston, ensuring there is no post-code lottery on protecting children.

This summer the police and government will this summer publish a national strategy for missing persons.

Police are also currently trying to match their database of mispers with their tragic catalogue of hundreds of unidentified bodies and body parts they have found over recent decades.

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