Resources: Quick guide to ... child trafficking

1. Few youth workers are confident and trained to respond when they realise that a young person may have been brought to the UK by traffickers. Yet a survey three years ago by ECPAT UK, a children's rights organisation working to end child prostitution, child pornography and trafficking, found that 32 of 33 boroughs in London were concerned they had a problem with trafficked children. A parliamentary human rights committee this month concluded that the support offered to trafficked children is generally of a poor standard. Cases are known where young women simply disappear without receiving support.

2. Trafficked children have been bought, sold and transported from their homes, generally from sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and East Asia. They may have been lied to about what was happening, or threatened or abducted by force. There are clear links with sexual exploitation. Young people are also brought to work in domestic service, the restaurant trade or for illegal activities. Once a child has been trafficked, they are vulnerable to sexual exploitation.