Trafficked children and unaccompanied asylum seeking children

About the issue

The All Wales Protocol: Reducing the criminalisation of care experienced children and young adults highlights that unaccompanied asylum seeking children are particularly vulnerable to being exploited and coerced into offending.

Missing People and Every Child Protected Against Trafficking (ECPAT) have reported that trafficked and unaccompanied children in local authority care are at very high risk of going missing, including those who are care experienced.

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The number of identified and suspected trafficked children in local authority care has increased over the three years, from 960 in 2018 to 1,231 in 2020: a 22% increase.
The number of identified and suspected trafficked children who have gone missing from local authority care has increased, from 284 in 2018 to 378 in 2020: a 24.9% increase.
In 2020, almost 1 in 3 (31%) trafficked children were reported missing from care (378 of 1,231).
In 2020, trafficked children went missing on average over eight times during each year, a rate significantly higher than for the looked after children population, which was 6.5 missing incidents per child in 2020.
In 2020, the UK instituted Covid-19 public health measures (such as lockdowns) which led to a general decrease in missing children. The increases in number and episodes of missing for the trafficked children demographic is very concerning in contrast with the decrease in missing numbers for children more generally.
Trafficked children continue to be one of the groups who are most at risk of going missing in the UK, with nearly one third going missing from local authority care in 2020. This compares to one in 10 looked after children in England and around one in 200 children overall in the UK.

In 2020 there were 5,263 unaccompanied children in local authority care, up from 4,749 in 2018. This is an overall increase of almost 10%, despite a slight drop from 2019.
13% of unaccompanied children went missing from care in 2020 (692 of 5,263). This was a slight decrease from 14% (708 of 4749) in 2018. It may be the case that the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on migration has had an impact on the number of unaccompanied children in local authority care in 2020.
There was an increase in 2019, with 799 unaccompanied children going missing: nearly 15% of unaccompanied children in care.
The average number of missing incidents per unaccompanied child is 2.5, which is significantly less than the average number for the wider looked after children population, which was 6.5 missing incidents per child in 2020.
Overall, the proportion of unaccompanied children going missing has decreased however, this group remains at very high risk of going missing, and remains at higher risk than the general looked after children population.