Sexual exploitation and trafficking

Article 3 of the Palermo Protocol To Prevent, Suppress And Punish Trafficking In Persons,Especially Women And Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime to the UN Convention (2000) (ratified by the UK on 6 February 2006) defines trafficking as:

a) “Trafficking of persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat of or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
b) the consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used.
The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purposes of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article;
a) Child shall mean any person under 18 years of age.

Internal Trafficking
Children and Young People (both of UK and other citizenship) are being trafficked internally within the UK.There are documented cases of children, born in the UK, being targeted for internal trafficking between towns and cities for sexual exploitation.The traffickers exert strong control over the children who often have no means of communicating with family or friends and often have no idea where they were in the UK. The children complied with the sexual demands to avoid being further assaulted or their family or friends threatened.

Source – Department of Children Schools and Families (2009) Safeguarding Sexually Exploited Children and Young People: Supplementary Guidance to Working Together HM Government , DCSF