 A hidden world of childhood pain. When we were playing hide-and-seek, he used to follow me to where I was hiding. And that's where it all started. A huge increase in reports of children sexually assaulting other children, even in the classroom. And, like, I felt him come close to me. And we had skirts on. It was clearly uniform. And he put his hand out of my skirt. Tonight, they tell us what happened in their own words. I went to the loo to, you know, check on my hair. And then he just came in behind me and locked the door. How some adults fail to protect them. They never really took it that seriously. They just kind of roll their eyes and be like, oh, what now? And how even reports of sexual violence by primary school children are increasing. She burst into tears. She said, I just want him to stop hurting me. Talking about sexual assault is difficult, especially if you're a child. Panorama has spent months listening to children and parents brave enough to share their experiences, by concealing their identities to protect them and using animation to help tell their stories. I was in the same classes as him. And outside of school, we used to socialise a lot. Our families were very close. Danny grew up playing with the son of her parents' friends. We used to play very innocent games. Like, we used to play computer games or hide-and-seek. By the time they were 10, their relationship began to change. We'd still, like, play the same games. But when we were playing hide-and-seek, he used to follow me to where I was hiding. While their parents were downstairs unaware, her friend would lock her in a room with him. When it started off, we were just kissing. I felt it was wrong because I saw him more as a brother. It made me feel so disgusting and uncomfortable in my body. Danny didn't tell anyone what was happening. He was ashamed and didn't want to ruin the relationship between her parents and their friends. He would first, like, touch me when I was still clothed. And then he would, like, go under the clothes until it progressed into him forcing me to do stuff to him. There were an estimated 200,000 cases of child sexual abuse every year. It's believed a third is carried out by other children. Danny's abuse continued for years. One night when she was 13, she and the boy were at a party with their parents. It was quite late at night, and I went to the loo to, you know, check on my hair. And then he just came in behind me and locked the door, and then he turned the lights off and cornered me. And then he just, like, started undressing me, and I kept pushing him away, but nothing ever stopped him from doing anything. And then it... And then it... Danny was forced to perform oral sex. Reports of children sexually assaulting other children are rising. It is increasingly becoming a really significant problem and a significant challenge. We are seeing an increasing number of reports. We are seeing significant examples of harmful sexual behaviour, and the lives of young people lighted and traumatically affected by sexual abuse. We asked all police forces in the UK for their figures on child-on-child sexual abuse. 38 across England and Wales responded. They reveal a dramatic increase in the last four years. Reports of sexual offences have risen from 4,603 in 2013 to 7,866 last year, an increase of 71%. Most of those abused are girls. Young people are increasingly living their lives on social media and never far from their smartphones. Young people now have got access to inappropriate content, and it's not just pornography. It's dating sites, social media, and a lot of that content normalises negative attitudes, negative behaviours. We spoke to teenagers from across the country who told us that many are sharing intimate photos of themselves. It's called sexting. So sexting is happening, it's relevant, it's happening everywhere. Sending videos on cleavage or even private areas, you know, that is kind of a problem. Sometimes girls feel pressured into doing it to show that they care about their boyfriend or girlfriend wherever you are. It's illegal to send or possess explicit images of an under-18-year-old. But teachers say it's become normal. For somebody's actually said, I love you or I really care about you, they've sent an ached picture. And I think that's where things now are very different to how they were in the past and most parents' childhoods. If you don't do what everybody else does, there's something wrong with you. When Emily was 15, a boy in her year started messaging her. It'd just be general talk. At the beginning, like, what are you doing? How are you? Things like that. Then he wanted photos. He'd asked me to send sexual pictures for the exchange of his sexual pictures, but I'd say no, and I'd just almost laugh it off. But he wouldn't stop. He'd message me telling me he's obsessed with me. I'd say things like, you're getting weird now, you're a bit stalkerish. And he'd be like, I know, I can't get you out of my head and things like that. One day at school during an art lesson, Emily and the boy were at the back of the class. The teacher was busy at the front. The boy had a ruler, and he started poking me, prodding me a number of times in the vagina. And then in the end, I grabbed the ruler off him. I turned round and was talking to friends and, like, I felt him come close to me. And we had skirts on. It was clear uniform. And he put his hand up my skirt and put his fingers up inside me. Emily is not the only child to be sexually assaulted in school by another child. Over the last four years, there have been 2,625 reports of sexual offences by children on school premises. 225 of these were rapes. We are a star group of teenagers about their experience of school life. There are a lot of comments made in school, usually directed to girls, their bodies, sexual preferences, the way they look. It's all kind of a joke when it comes to boys. There are, like, one or two boys who take apart the limits sometimes and touch in girls when they don't want to be touched by making suggestive remarks constantly. Quite a lot of girls don't like to take off their jumpers at school because they're afraid of boys staring at them. Boys will call them names, slag, slug, all that sort of stuff. You've just got to deal with it because it's stuff that happens, like, on a daily basis. It tends to be put on that girls, it's their fault where you can't take a joke, can you? Or it's just boys being boys. Name calling is just, like, slapping berms. It's not really problematic, is it? It's very difficult for young women to respond to that. Susan was 14 when she started going out with one of the boys in her class. I had always kind of known him, and we were best friends, and then we started dating. While they were together, they had a sexual relationship, but she broke up with him, and he started harassing her in school. So we'd just be in a lesson, and he'd either be sat too close to me, hands on me, kind of thing. And they could see I was a little bit like... because I've always been a bit... I like my own space. They'd ask him to move, or he'd be asked to leave the classroom, but nothing actually happened. Susan says she went to her teachers about him so regularly, they eventually gave up trying to help. But if problems in the classroom aren't dealt with, they can follow children beyond the school gates. There were times at parties, and we'd all get drunk, and this one time I was really drunk, and he took advantage of that. Susan was at a party when she ran into her ex. She was 15. He walks past me, and he's trying to touch me down below, and I'm just like, what? I'm like, what's going on? And the next thing I know, he's just like dragged me out, and I don't really remember much of that night, but I came away and my clothes weren't on properly. Susan knew she'd had sex, but didn't realise it was rape. Many children don't understand consent. They're just sitting there, not saying anything, not engaging. Do we think that's consent? This school in London has invited a charity to talk to its pupils about consent in a range of scenarios. Absolutely. Anyone else? If someone's consented, they're going to give a straight response. We'll give us a straight response. They're not going to be like, oh, I'm not sure. They're not going to be tuned. They've delivered over 100 classes in the last two years. You can always tell things around and say, if the girl was like, all right in the head, why didn't she come up with that word? Charity director Kate Parker says teachers and pupils want their help. What has really surprised me has been the reaction from schools and from parents, and indeed from some students who get in contact with me, saying, you know, we really want to urgently discuss all of this stuff. Right. The boy is her boyfriend. Does that change things in any way? Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Who said, yeah, over here? Why does that change things? Because, like, it depends if he already have her consent from before. A common view, also held by some adults. Discussing consent and teenage relationships is not part of the curriculum, so schools can decide whether or not to include it. So do they. There's very little work in schools around sexual consent. Young people just don't understand what it actually means. The influences now tend to be around online pornography, how that portrays what sex is about, how to do sex, and often sexual consent is really missing in that. Susan says she was never taught about consent, and it wasn't until she described the night of the party to her teacher that she realised the boy had raped her. It didn't really hit me that that's what it was until I told the teacher. So I didn't think I was telling her anything crazy. I just thought it was a bit wrong. She says her teacher didn't do much to help. She just offered me advice on how I couldn't stay away from him. There was no talk about the police or telling his parents or taking it further. It was only really I'll block him or stay away from him in lesson. What should a teacher do when a child accuses another child of sexual assault? All schools must follow government guidance called keeping children safe in education. It tells teachers that if a child alleges sexual assault by an adult, they should report it to the local authority. But when a child is accused of sexual assault, schools are advised to follow their own child protection procedures. I think in the research I know that's been undertaken that many schools do not report sexual violence to outside agencies. Schools are not responding in a consistent way. Teachers say government guidance needs to be clearer. School leaders and schools want to get it right, but they're not always getting the help and support they need. There needs to be some more clarity in terms of the specific procedures that schools must take. The Department for Education told Panorama sexual assault is a crime and any allegation should be reported to the police. Susan, now 16, was looking forward to the end of term. It was a year since she'd been attacked at the party. We were finishing school, so I was really happy. We had all the summer and we had loads of plans. But her ex-boyfriend started hassling her at school. He followed her home and persuaded her to let him in. He kept trying to lift my jumper up and touch my boobs and I'd take his hands away and I said, please, I just want you to leave. I'm sorry, I don't want to annoy you, but I just feel so awkward. He took my trousers off. I was on the sofa. And he just forced himself inside of me. I just remember after that just kind of zoning out. This time, Susan called the police and he was arrested. Children spend a lot of time in school. The pressure of seeing your abuser every day can build up. It overtook my life and I just started to become too scared to go to school because I knew he'd be there. After five years of abuse by a family friend, seeing him at school just became too much for Danny. There was one day in school where I just completely broke down and I knew then I just had to tell my mum because I couldn't do it anymore. Her mother came into school and the police were called. The boy was arrested, but he wasn't charged. Panorama has discovered that over the last four years 74% of reported child-on-child sexual offences resulted in no further action. 48 boys were given a caution for rape. You're dealing with people who will be reluctant. You're dealing with cases whereby there's been a relationship in the past and it's very much a case of the Crown Prosecution Service deciding to charge invariably on the word of one person against another. Since both children have a right to education, this leaves schools in a difficult position. Danny says the school told her there were no grounds to expel her abuser but promised to keep them apart. But she says that didn't happen. After he was arrested, that's when he started following me around school and he would turn up like where my lessons were just to make me feel uncomfortable. I felt unsafe everywhere. She and her parents complained to the headteacher. They tried to get around it by like saying you don't have much longer left in school. She found it impossible to concentrate. I had to take a GCSE exam in the same room as him and it was really weird because I obviously knew that he was in that room and I started smelling him and as soon as I smelled him everything came back and I'd relive everything and I couldn't focus on the exam and the thing is I need that exam to get me out of that school and to get me away from him. And there's a further hurdle children face when they report another child. Bullying. After Emily was assaulted in her art class other children found out the boy had been reported to the police. I got this greeting off about 10 to 15 pupils all swearing and shouting at me like you're a grass, you're a this, you're a that and I got some comments like he should have raped you. It was overwhelming. And she couldn't leave the abuse at school either. She followed her home. And I got so many like comments I was tagged in photos I was called a liar things were put up about me people that I didn't even know were joining. When the boy returned to school the bullying got worse and she said her teachers didn't help. The headmaster would say when he'd isolated me and stopped me from going out at lunch and break times he'd say well maybe this isn't a school for you you can leave, you know we suggest you do and make a fresh start. Susan, who says she was raped twice by her ex-boyfriend, was also bullied. He'd gone round to this party and told everyone I was a liar and I tried to get him done for rape it was horrible messages that I was scum that I should die. We'd be on the bus and they'd throw things at me or shout things, make comments it's not even always him it's his friends. She says it affected her mental health and she had to build a whole new life. I had actually thought about suicide and I had self-harmed I didn't think that there was a way out I started to make different friends that were older and wouldn't hang around with anyone that I would be socialising in my year with previously. Sexual violence is not just a problem in secondary schools it's affecting primary schools too James and Anna's daughter Bella was six. Our daughter had lots of hobbies so bright, so gregarious she was always the one that if someone fell over she'd be the first one running to them to help them She just wanted to do things with people always wanting to be around people engaging with people But she became withdrawn her parents didn't think much of it at first but her mother became suspicious one morning when Bella said she needed a meeting in her bedroom with a boy in her class I turned and I looked at her and her face was just white and I said why do you need a meeting in your bedroom have you fallen out and she shook her head and her little chin was wobbling and I said if something happens sweetheart and she burst into tears she just dissolved in front of me she said I just want him to stop hurting me and then she said I want them to stop hurting me Bella told her mother that two boys had been assaulting her in the school playground for the last six weeks Bella was subjected to daily digital rape which means they would use their fingers to rape her anally and vaginally repeatedly and she couldn't sit down because they'd hurt her so badly the day before it hurt too much to sit down and that's why she was standing up eating her breakfast Bella's case isn't unique it's a growing problem In the last four years the number of sexual offences by children aged 10 and under reported to the police has more than doubled In 2013 there were 204 sexual offences last year there were 456 It's not uncommon to have to deal with allegations of serious sexual assaults inappropriate touching sexual abuse by very young children but of course under 10 you can't commit a crime so that then presents a challenge to itself The police told Bella's parents the boys were under the age of criminal responsibility and couldn't be charged They say they had to fight to get the police to make a record of the incident and that no one would help them You'd expect the police were involved social services should be involved From an education perspective what other agencies get told we were flying blind They say they were told off the record by social services, the police and children's charities that if they wanted to protect their daughter they should move but they couldn't We retreated into our home Our home became our safe place We'd keep the curtains drawn during the day These boys could cycle round in front of our house We'd spend most of our time at the back of the house curled upon the sofa, reading Anna says she's spoken to parents from other primary schools who also revealed their children had been sexually abused We have all of these unheard victims of children who have been abused by children under 10 and they're unheard because there's no register because there's no crime Anna and James are taking legal action because they believe the authorities failed in their duty of care Panorama has spoken to parents of other children in primary and secondary schools who are also taking legal action We are dealing unequivocally with the tip of the iceberg We know that only one in eight reports are actually coming through to the police so one victim in every eight is having the confidence and the courage to come forward The girls and parents we've spoken to were brave enough to report the sexual assaults but they feel they were failed by the authorities and let down by their friends Danny finished her exams and has now left school Some days I actually look back and I think to myself how did you get through that I think I finally also realised my strengths Emily moved to school and had to retake a whole year It's not what actually happens that has the worst effect on you it's what comes after it It's the being disbelieved it's the people failing you Susan remains in college with her abuser I had actually thought if it's happened to me who else has that happened to All the people Panorama has spoken to say that if children are to report sexual assault the authorities must protect them when they do I couldn't actually believe that we're in the 21st century in Great Britain and we are allowing sexual abuse to continue and for victims to go unsupported Details of organisations offering information and support with child sexual abuse are available at the BBC Action Line website or you can call for free at any time to hear recorded information on 0800 077 077