Child trafficking rises 17% while child trafficking convictions fall

We are seeing a shocking rise in children being exploited in communities across the UK who need our care and support to identify them and help their recovery. Our response must keep pace with the changing ways perpetrators reach, recruit, control and exploit children. Increasingly, this includes the use of the online world and emerging technologies, including AI, to reach children at greater scale and speed. Exploitation is becoming more complex, increasingly enabled by technology and, in some cases, harder to detect.

As Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, I have a UK-wide responsibility to encourage good practice in preventing and responding to modern slavery and  human trafficking. An important part of that role is  using evidence to understand where our systems are working, where children are being let down and where change is needed.

This report, produced jointly with ECPAT UK, brings together evidence on the UK’s response to child trafficking at a time of significant legislative and policy change. There has been important progress in recent years. The recognition of child criminal exploitation in legislation, the national expansion of Independent Child Trafficking Guardians across England and Wales, and reforms to multi-agency safeguarding all create opportunities to strengthen the response. But legislation and policy  must ultimately be judged by what they mean for  children in practice.

Children who have experienced trafficking may disclose gradually, provide incomplete accounts or struggle to explain what has happened to them. The circumstances of their exploitation may also mean that offending forms part of their experience as a victim. Our systems must be capable of recognising these realities, rather than allowing them to become barriers to identification and protection.

This is particularly important as the Government introduces new legislation affecting how the credibility of victims’ accounts is assessed. We must not create a system in which a child’s credibility is undermined simply because time has passed, because they cannot recall or vocalise every detail, or because the circumstances of their exploitation resemble those experienced by other children. These can be features of exploitation and trauma, not reasons to deny a child protection.

The evidence in this Snapshot reveals a deeply concerning picture. In the year ending March 2025, children’s social care recorded more than 30,000 episodes involving trafficking, criminal or sexual exploitation in England. Yet during 2025, only 7000 were referred to the Government’s support framework for identifying victims of exploitation and offering them additional care. There is a significant gap between the scale of exploitation being identified in children’s social care records and the number of children being referred into the system designed to identify and support victims, while the true scale of exploitation may be greater still.

Despite the scale and seriousness of this abuse, too few perpetrators are being brought to justice. In 2025, there were just 34 completed prosecutions in England and Wales in cases flagged for both modern slavery or human trafficking and child abuse, with only 17 resulting in a conviction. Children are being failed at both ends of the system: in identifying and protecting victims, and in holding those who exploit them to account.

The findings also reinforce the need to anticipate emerging threats rather than continually responding once exploitation has taken hold. This is particularly important for children, whose relationships and experiences increasingly move between physical and digital environments. Our safeguarding response must keep pace with that changing reality. 

Throughout all of this, one principle should remain constant, children who have been trafficked must be recognised as children first.

I hope this Snapshot provides an evidence base not only for scrutiny, but for action. As the nature of child exploitation changes, so too must our response. We need a system capable of recognising exploitation earlier, responding to the realities of children’s experiences and ensuring that every child receives the protection they need.

Read the full report here

Eleanor Lyons,  
Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner