Children and young people who may have been trafficked
Last updated: December 9, 2008
Table of Contents
1. Purpose of the guidance
The purpose of this procedure and guidance is to assist staff in all agencies to:
- be aware of child trafficking
- understand the issues which can make children from abroad particularly vulnerable
- identify children from abroad who may be in need of protection
- understand that trafficking can be internal, with British children being exploited
- know what action to take in accordance with their responsibilities within generic child protection guidelines
- have information on factors that may indicate a child has been trafficked
- have references to legislation, research, organisations and other documents relating to child trafficking
It is not intended to provide the answer to all situations and no practitioner or agency holds all of the knowledge. The profile of trafficked children change and knowledge of specific issues is developing. The use of multi agency strategy meetings gives the best possible way forward in these complex cases.
There are, however, a number of concerns regarding measures to tackle child trafficking, and the number of young people going missing from Children’s social care raises concerns about identification and protection of young people on arrival.
- There is no specific ’safe accommodation model’ to house young people who are at risk of being or have been trafficked in the area and there are no specially trained foster carers to take on children suspected of being trafficked. These children and young people are being placed in a range of accommodation. [The 'safe house' model, i.e. locked secure accommodation, is not considered suitable for a 'victim' of trafficking except in very rare cases].
- A key problem for all agencies is that they often lack basic information about missing children, which makes it very difficult to find them: there can be very little history unlike a British child.
- Another key concern is identifying victims of child trafficking in private fostering arrangements and making a referral for a statutory assessment. This requires awareness and vigilance on the part of all statutory agencies, voluntary organisations and communities.
- Trafficking may have taken place before arrival in the UK, so there is no immediate risk but the child needs the support like any other abused child.
- There may be an age dispute
To tackle these concerns, this guidance sets out a series of recommendations aimed at relevant agencies, including Children’s social care services, education, police, health, voluntary and community organisations.
It is important that awareness and identification of child trafficking increases within all agencies that come into contact with children from abroad.
It is the objective of Local Safeguarding Boards [LSCBs] to co-ordinate what is done by their member agencies to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the local area and to ensure the effectiveness of that work.
The Safeguarding children who may have been trafficked 2007 states that LSCBs should develop inter-agency protocols to guide action where there are concerns that a child has been trafficked, including sharing concerns about a child’s safety and the recording of cases. The protocols should be consistent with wider LSCB policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.
All practitioners who come into contact with children and young people in their everyday work need to be able to recognise when children have been trafficked and exploited, to understand the areas of vulnerability that this can generate for a child or young person and should be competent to act to support and protect these children.
This may be the crucial intervention which breaks the cycle of the child being vulnerable to continuing or further exploitation.
