Fears Grow Over Child Slavery in Lockdown
Government data reveals a 3000% incease in child exploitation over ten years.
Within the first three quarters of 2020, the government have recorded a total of 7586 cases, almost double the number of referrals made in 2016. Police believe the rising numbers are due to the increase of county lines and drug trafficking within the UK.
Dr Stephanie Bennett is a university lecturer who specialises in evaluating witness interviews for children who have been trafficked into and within the UK. She says: “It is inevitable that COVID-19 will have had a significant detrimental impact on children and young people who are at risk of being trafficked in the UK.”
With schools closed, and teachers unable to safeguard their students, “children will be more isolated and at risk than ever before.” Further intensifying the issue is the fact that government organisations and charities have been unable to identify victims during lockdown, making it so much easier “for traffickers to hide their victims.”
The UK Home Office’s National Referral Mechanism is the government scheme set out in order to identify and refer suspected victims of exploitation and modern slavery. Statistics from 2020 show that during the UK’s lockdown and November 2020 lockdown, there had been a drop in the overall NRM referrals made, but the number of referrals for children had increased within these time periods.
The government’s most recent figures revealed that 46% of exploitation referrals made were for children, with the most common nationality being British. This has been the most common nationality for children, yet for adults the same cannot be said, with the most common nationality being Albanian.
As seen on the graph below, exploitation referrals regarding British children were signifcantly higher than the second most common nationality, Vietnamese.
The government believe the rise in referrals of children is due to the growth in awareness of the NRM process, which also provides support for the suspected victims of exploitation.
On the other hand, the rise in gang-run county lines is also a leading factor for the increase of child NRM referrals. In 2017, the government identified 17 criminal offences that could be deemed as modern slavery. These included forced labour, servitude and human trafficking.
Criminal exploitation such as county lines, can be legally identified as human trafficking, and is now recognised as an act of modern slavery, with estimates of up to 2,000 individual lines operating nationally, exploiting young and vulnerable people.
The majority of NRM referrals regarding criminal exploitation were aged between 15 and 17. Police believe children of this age are more likely to be exploited as they are regarded as easier to approach, exploit and control, with gangs using the means of mass texts and social media adverts to lure their victims in, as they are now spending more time online, especially during the UK’s lockdowns.
Figures are expected to rise in 2021 following further lockdown restrictions and closures of schools.
