Barnardo’s children’s charity dealt with 1,452 sexually exploited children in the UK last year – an increase of 22% - and has seen a 37% increase in cases over the past three years. Last week it called for more to be done to protect young people from being internally trafficked for sex.
Taking September 2012 as an example, Barnardo’s says that the number of young people it dealt with who had been trafficked within the country rose by 84% - from 76 to 140 children year on year.
“Domestic trafficking of children for sex is a sophisticated type of exploitation, a sinister form of organised violation through networks of criminals,” said Barnardo’s chief executive Anne Marie Carrie.
“Nobody currently knows the full extent of these crimes because of their hidden nature, but what we do know is that every time we open a new service for victims it quickly becomes fully subscribed,” she warned. “If we are to save children from suffering for years at the hands of their abusers, more must be done by the authorities to identify victims of child sexual exploitation who are being internally trafficked and to stop this activity earlier on.”
Barnardo's is calling for:
- the UK Government and the devolved administrations to protect victims and other children from being trafficked for sex;
- local multi-agency bodies with responsibility for safeguarding children in the UK to commit to monitoring the risk and the incidence of children being internally trafficked for sexual exploitation, and for police to use the full range of law enforcement and disruption tactics to arrest and deter the abusers;
- the Department for Education and the Home Office to do more to deliver on the National Action Plan’s commitment to tackling child sexual exploitation in England – ensuring that local authorities and police forces monitor the risk and the reality of this horrific abuse; and
- Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales to tackle domestic trafficking of children for sexual exploitation, ensuring that the police are fulfilling their responsibilities.
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Read more on the Barnardos press release here.
