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Complex Safeguarding Wales

Identifying child criminal exploitation

There is no universal definition for child criminal exploitation.

Exploitation is difficult to identify because:

  • any child can be exploited regardless of age, gender, ethnicity or socioeconomic background
  • there is rarely a single event or incident that shows a young person is being exploited
  • young people can be exploited by strangers, known adults or peers or family members.

It is also difficult to identify because a young person may be affected by different types of exploitation at the same time. No one professional will hold all the information necessary to identify child criminal exploitation. This makes multi-agency information sharing and collaborative work vital to identifying and protecting young people.

Professionals must go beyond what they can see and use their curiosity to consider what may be happening in the child’s life.

It is important that young people are given the most appropriate support for the abuse they have suffered.

Child criminal exploitation

In Wales, professionals use the definition in the All-Wales Practice Guide for Safeguarding Children from Child Criminal Exploitation.

This definition has six elements:

1. Modern slavery and human trafficking

Child criminal exploitation is a form of modern slavery. Modern slavery refers to the:

  • coercion, force or exploitation of young people
  • taking, transferring, or harbouring of young people
  • using force, coercion, deception, or power imbalance.

Modern slavery includes slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking (Home Office, 2019). It can be used for criminal, financial or sexual exploitation as well as forced labour, domestic servitude, shoplifting or fraud.

Child trafficking is increasing in Wales (Welsh Government, 2019). It affects:

  • British and non-British nationals, including unaccompanied asylum seekers
  • individuals cannot give informed consent to engage in forced criminality or to be abused or trafficked.

Trafficking does not only involve international movements. Young people can be trafficked from one street to another within a local area.

2. The element of exchange

Child criminal exploitation involves the element of exchange, and can include the exchange of something:

  • tangible, such as trainers, branded goods, the promise of ‘easy money’
  • intangible, such as feelings of security, belonging to a wider gang ‘family’, identity or status.
  • prevention of violence, such as violence towards a family member.

3. Criminal activity

This can include a range of activities such as:

  • selling and transporting drugs
  • theft
  • burglary
  • being made to open a bank account for money laundering purposes.

4. Violence

Threats or actual violence can be used against

  • the young person
  • their boyfriend or girlfriend
  • their family members.

Young people may too frightened to ask for help or speak to professionals in case the people exploiting them find out.

5. Victims as well as perpetrators

Criminally exploited children and young people can be both victims and perpetrators.

They may be forced into making threats or using violence towards others. They may do this to prevent themselves or their families from becoming victims.

6. County lines exploitation

County lines is a police term. It refers to a type of drug distribution where drugs are sold using a branded mobile phone number.

County lines is a form of child criminal exploitation where young people are used to transport and/or sell drugs. They may be:

  • trafficked from one geographical area to another, e.g. from England to Wales
  • trafficked within a geographical area, e.g. from Newport to Barry.

Our research participants said that the term county lines can be confusing as it has led to common misconceptions, such as that it only affects boys from ethnic minorities or young people from cities. Our research recommended that the term ‘child criminal exploitation’ be used. However, our latest findings suggest that this can also be too limited as young people are often subject to different forms of exploitation.