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Human Trafficking: Children

Answer

This Government is committed to tackling the heinous crime of modern slavery and ensuring that all victims, including children, are provided with the support they need.

The Home Office continues to work with a range of partners to identify and deliver effective prevention activity. This includes awareness raising initiatives such as the Government’s ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’ campaign and the #SlaveryonYourDoorstep campaign led by CrimeStoppers. We also have a dedicated GOV.UK resources page that provides up-to-date information on how to spot the signs of modern slavery and report concerns.

Where children are found to be potential victims of human trafficking or modern slavery their safety and welfare are addressed as a priority. Local authorities are responsible for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children in their area, including child victims of modern slavery. Local children's services will work in close co-operation with the police and other statutory agencies to offer potentially trafficked children the protection and support they require.

With regard to the types of exploitation experienced by child trafficking victims in the UK and any change in the types of exploitation being identified over the past 10 years, the Home Office publishes statistics on National Referral Mechanism (NRM) referrals on a quarterly basis. The NRM statistics for 2012 to 2016 can be found here: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20170404150655/http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/publications/national-referral-mechanism-statistics.

The NRM statistics for 2017 to 2018 can be found here: https://nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/who-we-are/publications?search=&category%5B%5D=3&=%2Fwho-we-are%2Fpublications%3Flimit%3D15%26sort%3Dtitle%26direction%3Dasc&limit=100&tag=

The 2019 report and Q1-Q3 of 2020 can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-referral-mechanism-statistics

With regard to why some potential child trafficking victims are recorded as having experienced an unknown type of exploitation, the Home Office is currently addressing an earlier identified error that occurred in the data processing for the Q1-Q3 of 2020 statistics where some sexual exploitation referrals were miscategorised as ‘Not recorded or unknown’. Once this error is rectified, the number of sexual exploitation referrals will be higher than in the current statistical bulletins and the number of ‘not recorded or unknown’ referrals will be lower. The updated data will be released alongside the Quarter 4 (October to December 2020) statistics which are being prepared and will be released on 18 March 2021.

At the Reasonable Grounds stage of the National Referral Mechanism, the standard of proof is ‘suspects but cannot prove’. In Q2 and Q3 of 2020, 96% of Reasonable Grounds decisions made on child cases were positive.

Prior to the NRM digital case working system going live in January 2020, data collection on NRM cases included an ‘unknown’ exploitation category for any unknown case exploitation types. Since the new system has been introduced, there is now an ‘other exploitation’ free-text box that First Responders can fill in on the referral form to explain why they are unable to identify the exploitation type. The information contained within this box is considered by a Decision Maker when making the Reasonable Grounds decision. However, for data reporting purposes, this is classified as ‘unknown’.

Reasonable Grounds decisions are made based on the account of exploitation submitted in the form and not specifically on the exploitation type data, which is recorded to enable data analysis rather than to specifically support decision-making.

The Home Office continues to work with First Responders to ensure they understand the indicators of different exploitation types and, in July 2020, we released a new First Responder e-learning module which includes support on this issue.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

HL13168

Session

2019-21

Attachment

National Referral Mechanism Stats

Grouped for answer

Yes

Subjects

Children Human trafficking

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk