A new report, launched on 17 May, shows that child trafficking
is a growing problem in London and that, despite this, the capital's
social services are not clear on how to tackle the problem.
Cause for
Concern? London Social Services and Child Trafficking
by End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking UK (ECPAT
UK), (available here as a PDF file, see bottom of page about
reading PDF files), shows that despite child trafficking being
a growing problem in the UK, the majority of social workers in
the region do not have the information, training and resources
to help children affected by it.
"Many of the social workers we interviewed for the report
felt that they may have missed cases of trafficking through not
being aware of this issue," Carron Somerset, the report's
author, said.
Carron Somerset interviewed social services in all 33 of London's
boroughs and found 35 cases of child trafficking had taken place
in 17 of the capital's boroughs. This is just the tip of the iceberg
as it only accounts for cases reported to social services in the
London area. Trafficking affects many areas beyond the capital.
The report found that one of the obstacles to understanding the
problem of child trafficking among social workers and distinguishing
it from the issue of child smuggling was that they did not discuss
their cases with each other, even within the same team.
Children are trafficked to the UK to be used as domestic workers
and into sexual exploitation.
Cause for Concern? concludes that a major step forward
would be for social workers to start to discuss the issue of child
trafficking within teams, across teams and across boroughs. This
would help raise awareness of the problem, ensure a more co-ordinated
approach and assist in setting up systems that would help trafficked
children.
The report contains case studies of children trafficked to London,
statistics and recommendations.
