Preventing modern slavery and human trafficking of children and young people

This article was published for the Interparliamentary Taskforce on Human Trafficking

As the UK’s Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, my mission is to improve the UK’s response to modern slavery and human trafficking by encouraging good practice in the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of slavery and human trafficking offences.

My role is unencumbered by party politics or changes in government. It is enshrined in legislation in the UK to allow me to provide independent analysis and recommendations; and to build the partnerships across stakeholders and government functions so we can better understand, support, and improve the totality of our efforts in tacking these dehumanising crimes.

To drive effective change, it is important that we have the freedom and independence to look at our response to modern slavery and human trafficking in our own countries, so we can have those difficult discussions and highlight where improvements must be made.

Modern slavery and human trafficking in the UK

In the UK we are seeing worrying numbers of children in our National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the system the UK Government uses to identify and support people who have been victims of exploitation. Last year, of people who reported being exploited, 44% said that this happened when they were children. [i] This is up an astounding 138% in the five years between 2018 and 2023.[ii]

British children comprised 78% of all UK nationals referred into the NRM in 2023 and British boys alone accounted for 35%.[iii] This is partially explained by high numbers of boys being referred to the NRM citing criminal exploitation often linked to drug criminality. We know, however, that the number of girls in modern slavery is likely to be underreported, particularly those in sexual exploitation.

All children must be kept safe

Criminals are targeting children for sexual exploitation, criminal activities, forced marriage, labour exploitation and/or domestic servitude. It can be hard for children themselves to understand what is happening to them, particularly if criminals have used grooming techniques to gain their trust.

The absence of protective parents or guardians and adverse childhood experiences have all been shown to intensify a child’s risk to exploitation. Children in care should be protected, in stable and loving environments with joined-up statutory services flexible to their needs but sadly this is not universal. Children in care who are not in appropriate placements are often at an increased risk of being targeted by criminals.

Trafficked children and those with an unstable immigration status are also particularly vulnerable.[iv] No child should be housed in a hotel or excluded from local authority care. Sadly, however unaccompanied children seeking asylum, as young as 10, have been housed in hotels by the UK Home Office in the recent past and there were 447 missing child reports from these hotels between July 2021 to June 2023.[v]

Children who are outside of the school system and care of professionals can also be very vulnerable. Following the pandemic, as many as 1.8 million children do not attend school regularly in England.[vi]  This increases the risk of authorities being able to identify them and intervene before they are pulled into gangs. Criminals are ruthless in the targeting of children. We must show the same resolve in our protections of children and prevent them facing exploitation.

Partnership working critical to supporting child victims of modern slavery

Multi-agency working is crucial to make sure no child slips through the system. These local partnerships can prevent children from being exploited and identify abuse early on before this exploitation amounts to modern slavery.  They are equally important in ensuring that wrap-around and tailored support is available to all child victims of modern slavery. This approach is needed across the pillars of prevention, protection, and prosecution.

It is also important that those who interact with children recognise the signs that a child might be vulnerable and alert local authorities, charities, and community leaders. Those groups should then work together to put appropriate and tailored support in place to address those vulnerabilities. This may mean mental health support, support to get them back into school or having community after school activities.

It is also vital that the Government and schools work together to educate children to spot unhealthy relationships and teach them what to do and where to go if they feel unsafe. Many survivors have told me that their exploitation began when they were in school and early intervention would have made all the difference to preventing them from facing harm.

In the UK, the Government currently protects child victims through an Independent Child Trafficking Guardian service pilot. Guardians work closely with other partners to wrap care around child victims and support their individual needs. They can build trusted relationships with the victim and act as a consistent support figure to save the child having to disclose their experiences multiple times to different professionals which we know can be re-traumatising to do.

The service is currently patchy, with slightly different approaches in England and Wales to Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is also only available in two-thirds of the country. It is taking some time for this to be rolled out fully despite evidence showing that they have a positive effect on young people’s outcomes. That is why, I am pressing the Government to learn from what is working best from the slightly different approaches in across the UK and roll the service out fully to make sure that children are getting the care they need.

The criminals behind these horrific crimes must be held to account

In England and Wales, less than 2% of all modern slavery crimes resulted in a charge. [vii]  Representatives of law enforcement and the criminal justice system have said themselves that this is too low and that this cannot be a low risk, high reward crime.

We have a complex network of policing in the UK from local law enforcement through to large scale national and international operations. So, partnership working across all parts of law enforcement to bring these efforts together is critical in tackling this crime. Criminals must be held to account, and we must disrupt the organised crime gangs that are targeting children and young people.

Working with survivors

The most important partnership we can have is with child survivors of modern slavery to provide them with support to aid their recovery. I have been intensely moved by the accounts I have heard from a wide range of survivors and one of the priorities I have woven throughout my Strategic Plan is to integrate lived experience throughout everything I do. I want to amplify survivor voices so that legislators and policymakers hear from them what hasn’t worked and what the solutions are. We must prioritise this issue and learn from mistakes of the past to prevent and protect more children and young people from exploitation.

[i] National Referral Mechanism Statistics 2023, link.

[ii] National Referral Mechanism Statistics 2023, link.

[iii] National Referral Mechanism Statistics 2023, link.

[iv] One in three trafficked children go missing from local authority care, Every Child Protected Against Trafficking, 2022, link.

[v] Asylum Seeking Children: hotel accommodation debate 2023, link.

[vi] Briefing on school attendance in England, Children’s Commissioner for England, 2023, link.

[vii] Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables, Home Office, 2024, link.