In the Dock

application of the UK’s anti-trafficking legislation and the Convention. For instance the “act” element isrooted in child sexual offences in the SOA but not all of these offences interpret a child as personsbelow the age of 18.In 2012, the Council of Europe Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings(GRETA) noted this irregularity among others: “In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, children arepersons under the age of 18, however, pursuant to Sections 5 to 14 of the Sexual Offences Act (SOA)2003 … trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation includes offences against children defined aspersons under 13 years of age or under 16, but mistaken by the offender to be older. GRETA alsonotes that Section 4(4)(d) of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004refers to “young” persons without clearly designating children for the purposes of the Convention (i.e.persons under the age of 18).” 340 This lack of clarity around the age of a child in UK law, as well as theuse of the undefined word “young” in the AI(TC)A can cause confusion for those who are unfamiliarwith the legalisation and are attempting to utilise it in child trafficking cases. It is for these reasons,coupled with other difficulties outlined in Chapter 2, that practitioners have looked to prosecute underrelated offences such as child cruelty or unlawful facilitation.Statistics on child traffickingThere was a general consensus among interviewees that child trafficking has a lower profile, is not asvisible and as well documented as adult trafficking, which may partially account for the lower numberof prosecutions. One law enforcement officer stated:“The profile of trafficking of children isn’t as high as the trafficking of adults ... People don’t like to thinkthat children are trafficked. So, it’s almost like wilful blindness, they don’t want to think that ithappens.”Child trafficking statistics are a key indicator to assess the effectiveness of the UK’s CJS response tochild trafficking. Accurate and reliable data on how many children are trafficked into, within and out ofthe UK, is needed in order to debunk the myth that child trafficking is uncommon. Between April 2009and June 2012, 784 children were referred to the NRM as potential victims of trafficking. However, arecent UKHTC report identified 489 child victims in 2011 alone when it collated data from a variety ofsources, including the NRM and other stakeholders (this figure only represents those who receivedpositive Reasonable or Conclusive Grounds decisions). 341This number is likely to be much higher in reality as the UKHTC study did not collate data from localauthority children’s services. Despite these high numbers, there have been a total of 49 convictions(for both adults and children) under all trafficking legislation since 2009. Unfortunately, the data forconvictions is not disaggregated into adults and minors. Therefore, it is unknown how manyprosecutions were for child trafficking and it is therefore difficult to analyse whether the UK’s criminaljustice response to trafficked children differs significantly from adults. It was, however, agreed by themajority of interviewed stakeholders that few offenders are being brought to justice for traffickingoffences against children, which may send out a message that child trafficking is a low-risk, high-profitcrime.Once a child has been identified as a suspected victim of trafficking, government guidance promotesreferral to the NRM as required by Article 10 of the Convention. 342 Referring a child into the NRM mayhave a positive impact as it encourages the sharing of information between agencies and can help toensure an appropriate safeguarding response. NRM statistics can also identify patterns in childtrafficking that can aid law enforcement investigations and lead to better evidence gathering.340GRETA, supra note 87, p.25.341SOCA, supra note 19.342Association of Chief Police Officers, supra note 330.104