Identifying risk of harm

Young people living alone or semi-independently are at an increased risk of being exploited.

Housing practitioners have a role in identifying and safeguarding young people from child criminal exploitation. This is because exploiters take advantage of young people’s:

• reduced adult oversight
• feelings of loneliness and isolation
• lack of a family or social network
• limited income.

Exploiters may use violence or threats of violence to manipulate young people. They may offer them ‘easy money’, status, or a new ‘family’. They may use them to gain access to other young people living in the same accommodation.

Young people may be reluctant to disclose exploitation in case they lose their tenancy or accommodation. They may be worried about being blamed, especially if they invited them into their property, asked for help in earning money, or accepted ‘free’ drugs. This can make them feel frightened about repercussions from their exploiters if they speak to professionals.

Even when young people are relocated out of area, housing practitioners should be aware that young people, their parents, or siblings may become subject to threats and intimidation while the exploiters attempt to locate the young person.

Risk factors

Exploiters target young people who are experiencing housing instability. This includes those who are in temporary accommodation, hostels, sofa surfing or homeless.

There are a range of additional risk factors that housing practitioners should be alert to, including for those that are care-experienced young people or unaccompanied asylum seekers.

Care-experienced young people

They may be actively targeted, especially those who experience foster care or other placement breakdowns.

When young people regard exploiters as caring for them and being their ‘family’, they may perceive the benefits of these relationships to be greater than the risks of criminal exploitation.

Unaccompanied asylum seekers

Unaccompanied asylum seekers may be placed in semi-independent accommodation as young as 15 years.

They are at particular risk, as they have limited social and economic capital, and may be too frightened to tell anyone.

Cuckooing

A common feature of child criminal exploitation is ‘cuckooing’. This is where the home of a young person or vulnerable adult is taken over by a drug dealer or group.

Young people may not know the people who have taken over their homes, or they may have been tricked into letting ‘friends of friends’ stay overnight. They may be manipulated, forced, or coerced through the potential loss of friendship and membership of the group, the offer of free drugs, or payment. Young women may be exploited through the illusion of a romantic relationship.

Cuckooing can make a young person too afraid to leave their home or if they do leave, they may not feel it is safe for them to return.

Warning signs

Housing practitioners can identify a cuckooed property through the following signs:

• people coming and going at all times of the day and night
• cars or bikes coming to the property for short periods of time
• increased anti-social behaviour around the property
• the tenant may stop talking to housing staff or other practitioners.

Young people don’t have the power to make the exploiters leave or have a say in what is happening in their homes. Conversely, young people may be forced, coerced or intimidated into staying in properties cuckooed from other young people or vulnerable adults, or to cuckoo a property from someone else.