From a global perspective, the UK can be seen as a relatively safe place for many
children to grow up. However, a high proportion of adolescents still face one or more serious risks. 1
Potential risks faced by adolescents, presented with illustrative examples, include:
Sexual Abuse
Child sexual exploitation by individuals and by gangs or groups; this could be by peers or adults; online or offline: other forms of sexual abuse.
Physical Abuse
Family violence; gang related and community violence; violence
within intimate relationships.
Neglect
Neglect from family members,
parental mental health or substance abuse that disrupts parenting capacity and imposing inappropriate caring responsibilities on the part of the young person.
Emotional Abuse
Within the family; extensive bullying by peers (in person and/or
online); living with domestic abuse between parents/guardians and carers; emotional abuse within intimate relationships.
Other Potential Risks
Homelessness and running away; mental health support needs; gang involvement; substance misuse.
Exploitation is a hidden harm, but one that many children experience each year. Due to the secretive and hidden nature of exploitation it is difficult to get an accurate picture of the scale of CCE and CSE taking place in the UK. 2
All children are at risk of being targeted and exploited. However those who exploit children will often target children from particular groups that can be vulnerable because of inadequate protective mechanisms.
These include children in poverty, children in care and care leavers, children who have experienced other abuse, including domestic abuse and neglect, unaccompanied asylum seeker children, children not in education, children with additional mental health needs and children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). 3
Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE)
In 2021, Barnardo’s made a Freedom of Information request to police forces across the UK about CCE.4 30 police forces responded, but only one police force was able to provide any data on CCE. Many police forces asked about how CCE is defined, demonstrating how misunderstood CCE really is.
This can mean that at risk children can go unidentified and unsupported, as well as data about exploitation being inaccurate.
In 2019, the then-Children’s Commissioner for England estimated that there were 27,000 children at high risk of exploitation by organised criminal gangs. 5
In 2022, the National Referral Mechanism received 7019 referrals relating to children, with the majority – 43% (3,013) – being referred for criminal exploitation. 6
The typical age of children being criminally exploited is from 14-17 years old, although we have seen victims as young as seven. 7
Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)
Surveys with children and young people consistently indicate a substantial gap between the rates of child self-reported sexual victimisation and reports made to authorities, suggesting that only a small minority of victimised children and adolescents are able to access professional help or advice. 8
It is difficult to assess the prevalence of CSE because of fundamental flaws in data sets, and the use of different definitions of CSE by various agencies,
making it simply not possible to know the full scale of child sexual exploitation in the UK. 9
During 2021/22 in England and Wales there were 17,486 crimes logged by police where children had been sexually exploited – an average of 48 offences a day. 10
UNICEF estimates that 1 in every 20 girls aged 15 to 19 (around 13 million) have experienced forced sex during their lifetime. 11
Online Exploitation
Technology has become increasingly central to children’s lives. The ubiquity of social media and smartphones has brought both new opportunities and new potential harms. Greater ability to contact and access children has led to increased opportunities for abusers to commit offences. And research suggests that online abuse can have as big an impact on young people as abuse that takes place face-to-face. 12
More than three quarters of children spend three or more hours online a day at the weekend, with one in five spending seven or more hours a day online at the weekend. 13
Technology-facilitated grooming has
become a major challenge. In the
first 18 months since it became an
offence to send sexual communication
to a child, there were over 5,000
offences recorded by the police in
England and Wales. 14
In a survey by the NSPCC, more than one in seven children aged 11–18 (15 per cent) say they have been asked to send self-generated images and sexual
messages. 15