Trafficked & Exploited Children and Young People

What is child trafficking?

Child trafficking is the recruitment and movement of children for the purpose of exploitation. This can be moving children from one country to another or moving children within a country.

The UK has ratified two national treaties (Council of Europe 2005 and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2000) to set out an agreed definition of human trafficking.

These define human trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of any persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or the abuse of power or a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purposes of exploitation. Exploitation can include sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, criminal activity including petty theft and cannabis cultivation, servitude, or the removal of organs.

What makes children vulnerable to being trafficked?

The NSPCC lists a number of factors that can leave children vulnerable to traffickers:

Being from a small town or village
Being a migrant or illegal immigrant
Having a low level of education
Coming from an ‘at-risk’ family (low income, problems of alcoholism, domestic abuse)
Living without parent care or in state care
Being homeless

The impact of child trafficking

Child trafficking is a form of child abuse that can have long-lasting and devastating effects.

Physical abuse: violence
Sexual abuse: sexual violence, high risk of sexually transmitted infections, multiple pregnancies
Emotional abuse: separated from their families, friends, communities and cultures, and no access to education
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: symptoms of hostility, aggression, difficulty in recalling details or entire episodes, and difficulty concentrating

Signs of child trafficking

The NSPCC have identified several signs that a child has been trafficked. These include:

Having falsified documentation
Being accompanied by an adult who is not the parent who insists on remaining with the child at all times
Having a prepared story very similar to stories given by other children
Not having any money but having a mobile phone
Being unable or reluctant to give details of accommodation or personal details
Having no access to their parent or guardians
Looking intimidated and behaving in a way that does not correspond with behaviour typical of children their age
Not being registered with a school or GP practice
Having no freedom of movement and no time for playing
Living apart from family and in substandard accommodation
Travelling without an adult or with adults who are not relatives or friends of the family
Being seen in inappropriate places such as brothels or factories
Receiving repeated unexplained or unidentified phone calls
Having a history with gaps and unexplained moves or going missing for periods
Being required to earn a minimum amount of money every day or pay off an exorbitant debt
Performing excessive housework chores and rarely leaving the residence
Being permanently deprived of a large part of their earnings by another