Guidance (Wales)

View key statutory guidance and strategy on safeguarding unaccompanied asylum seeking and refugee children and child victims of modern slavery.

While most key guidance on modern slavery and human trafficking applies across both England and Wales, Wales also publishes some distinct guidance, notably around housing eligibility for victims and child safeguarding procedures under Welsh-specific law and policy.

All Wales Practice Guidance for Safeguarding Children who May Have Been Trafficked (2011) - outlines procedures for identifying, protecting, and supporting children in Wales who are suspected victims of trafficking.
Amendments to the Allocation of Housing and Homelessness (Eligibility) (Wales) Regulations 2014 - these amendments clarify the eligibility criteria for housing and homelessness assistance for victims of slavery or trafficking in Wales.
Wales Safeguarding Procedures / Working Together Volume 5 (2021) - the Wales Safeguarding Procedures set out how practitioners in Wales should handle child exploitation cases, explicitly including modern slavery and trafficking risks under the UNCRC-referenced duties.
Children Seeking Asylum: Guidance for Foster Carers (2019) - practical advice to foster carers on how to support unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, addressing their legal, emotional, cultural, and developmental need within a safeguarding framework.

Image credit: By eNil (Flickr) CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons (cropped)

Latest

Joint response to the King's Speech announcement of reforms to the modern slavery framework

Following the announcement In the King's Speech that the new Immigration and Asylum Bill will include reforms to the modern slavery legislative framework, leading organisations and experts warn the government that it cannot end human trafficking and modern slavery without a safeguarding-first response to all victims and survivors that shifts the balance of risk decisively onto traffickers
Child Trafficking Survivors Warn: Government Proposals Will Put Vulnerable Children at Risk

The ECPAT UK Youth Advisory Group has issued a strong response to the King’s Speech with the announcement of a new Immigration and Asylum Bill as part of the government’s ongoing plans to reform the asylum and immigration system. The group raises the alarm about the impact on child victims of trafficking of major changes which will make identification and protection of victims harder.
An Overview of Child Trafficking, Modern Slavery & Exploitation

This online course provides a detailed overview of child trafficking, modern slavery and exploitation in the UK, supporting practitioners to identify and effectively safeguard child victims.
ECPAT UK welcomes GRETA’s Fourth Evaluation Report and urges Government to act on urgent child‑specific recommendations

ECPAT UK welcomes the publication of the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) Fourth Evaluation Round report on the United Kingdom, which delivers urgent and detailed child‑focused recommendations for the United Kingdom. GRETA’s report draws significantly on ECPAT UK’s research, reflecting our long‑standing evidence of systemic failures in the UK’s response to child trafficking and exploitation.

Guidance (England)

View key statutory guidance and strategy documents on safeguarding and care of unaccompanied migrant or refugee children and child victims of modern slavery. Case law and evolving immigration policy may impact the practice and legal context but does not directly replace statutory guidance.
Guidance (Scotland)

View key statutory guidance and strategy documents on safeguarding and care of unaccompanied migrant or refugee children and child victims of modern slavery.
Guidance (Northern Ireland)

View key statutory guidance and strategy documents on safeguarding and care of unaccompanied migrant or refugee children and child victims of modern slavery.

What is child trafficking?
Child trafficking statistics

The latest data on the number of victims of trafficking in the UK and worldwide.
National Referral Mechanism

The National Referral Mechanism is a process set up by the Government to identify and support victims of trafficking in the UK. It was born out of the Government's obligation to identify victims under the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Human Trafficking, which came into force on 1 February 2008.
Volunteer

ECPAT UK relies on committed volunteers to support the work that we do. Without their help, we would not be able to campaign as effectively against child exploitation.
The Secret Gardeners: New film on child trafficking from Vietnam

The Secret Gardeners aims to inform professionals about the plight of children who are forced by organised crime gangs to grow drugs in houses across the UK but who often face criminalisation and prison.
Our team

ECPAT UK's team has more than 30 years' experience working on issues of child trafficking, child protection, child sexual exploitation, unaccompanied children, modern slavery and more.
About us

ECPAT UK is a leading children's rights organisation working to protect children from child trafficking and transnational child exploitation. We support children everywhere to uphold their rights and to live a life free from abuse and exploitation.
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is an international human rights treaty that grants all children and young people (aged 17 and under) a comprehensive set of rights. The UK signed the Convention on 19 April 1990, ratified it on 16 December 1991 and it came into force on 15 January 1992.
Contact us

If you have an immediate concern about a child's welfare, please contact your local council's social care department, who are available 24 hours a day. For all other enquiries related to our work, contact [email protected] or call 020 7607 2136.
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols Thereto (including the Palermo Protocol)

The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols Thereto is the main international legal instrument in the fight against transnational organised crime, including human trafficking.

More than Words: how definitions impact on the UK’s response to child trafficking and exploitation

This report highlights how overlaps and gaps in terminology, and how they have created confusion and definitional instabilitythat hinders effective identification and intervention. These inconsistencies impact frontline practice, from safeguarding to policing and prosecution, resulting in missed opportunities to protect children from harm. Read more

ECPAT UK welcomes GRETA’s Fourth Evaluation Report and urges Government to act on urgent child‑specific recommendations

ECPAT UK welcomes the publication of the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) Fourth Evaluation Round report on the United Kingdom, which delivers urgent and detailed child‑focused recommendations for the United Kingdom. GRETA’s report draws significantly on ECPAT UK’s research, reflecting our long‑standing evidence of systemic failures in the UK’s response to child trafficking and exploitation. Read more