Every 20 minutes, a child was sexually abused in 2011 according to recently released police figures.

Some 23,000 children were victims of sexual abuse during 2010-11 in England and Wales, yet only 10 per cent of the cases ended up in sentencing the offender.

According to statistics, there were 54,982 sex offences last year which included 23,097 crimes against children. Most of the children (14,819) were aged between 11 and 17.

The figures were obtained by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty for Children (NSPCC) in a freedom of information request, covering sexual crimes including rape, incest and child prostitution across all 43 police forces in England and Wales.

Jon Brown, head of the NSPCC's sexual abuse programme said: "A concentrated effort has to be made if we are to start reducing this distressing level of offences, many of which committed on extremely young and helpless children," according to the Daily Mail.

He cautioned: "When you have a situation where more than 60 children are being sexually abused every day, something is very wrong. The government has to start treating the situation as seriously as they would if faced with an outbreak of chronic disease."

Responding to that, a government spokesperson said: "The government is determined to protect children from sexual abuse and will continue to work across departments, law enforcement, agencies and charities in order to do so," the Press Association reported.

"The Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme, known as 'Sarah's Law', has protected more than 200 children from potential harm in its first year of operation. We are tightening restrictions and closing loopholes to strengthen the sex offenders register and have set out a detailed action plan to tackle child sexual exploitation," the spokesperson said.