Child trafficking rises sharply in the UK as Government urged to tackle the problem

Child trafficking has risen year on year and calls have been made for the UK Government to tackle the issue as soon as possible to protect innocent UK children.

On the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and information we have received the situation is becoming worse and something needs to be done with immediate effect.

According to the ONS more males have been exploited mostly from the ages of 15 to 17 than girls in the UK.

The National Referral Mechanism (NRM) currently provides the best measure of potential victims, although is known to be an undercount. Data for the UK NRM for the year ending December 2021 shows:

• An increase of 9% in the number of potential child victims referred compared with the previous year (from 5,028 to 5,468)
• Of those referred, more than 9 in 10 (91%) received a positive reasonable grounds decision (RGD), meaning they were assessed as reasonably likely to be victims
• Almost four-fifths (79%) of positive RGDs were for boys; this proportion has increased rapidly since the year ending March 2015
• Boys who received a positive RGD were most likely to have been criminally exploited (62%) while girls were most likely to have been sexually exploited (42%)
• Over four-fifths (82%) of children who received a positive RGD were aged 15 to 17 years

Changes in police recording practices and the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic have likely affected the number of child victims identified in recent years. Alongside data from the NRM, other data sources show:

• An increase of 27% (to 3,239) in the number of modern slavery offences involving a child victim recorded by the police in England and Wales in the year ending March 2021 compared with the previous year
• 16,830 episodes of need for child sexual exploitation and 2,710 for trafficking identified by the Department for Education’s children in need census in the year ending March 2021, both representing a 10% decrease from the previous year; likely the result of a fall in referrals from schools during the pandemic
• A 43% decrease in the number of potential child victims reported to the Modern Slavery and Exploitation Helpline in the year ending December 2021 compared with the previous year

Between April 2016 and March 2021, the Crown Prosecution Service completed 185 modern slavery-related prosecutions involving a child victim in England and Wales – with a 51% conviction rate.

A film called Sound of Freedom highlights the seriousness of the problem around the world with actor Mel Gibson supporting the cause to free up exploited children and to end child trafficking once and for all.