Child Slavery Victims Surge as Conviction Rates Plummet, New Report Finds
New data reveals a 17% rise in child trafficking victims in the UK while convictions remain critically low. Explore the latest anti-slavery findings.
POLICY WIRE — London, United Kingdom — A concerning surge in child exploitation has been highlighted by the UK’s anti-slavery commissioner, who reported that over 7,000 children were identified as potential victims of trafficking and modern slavery last year. This figure represents a 17% increase, underscoring a growing crisis in child protection.
In a report released this Wednesday, commissioner Eleanor Lyons joined forces with the children’s charity ECPAT UK to sound the alarm on the judicial response to these crimes. The findings reveal that despite the high volume of referrals, there were fewer than 20 convictions in cases involving both child abuse and trafficking.
The scope of the issue remains broad, with various forms of exploitation—including forced labor, debt bondage, serfdom, and the sale of children—persisting despite global legal prohibitions. These practices continue to thrive even in the face of widespread international condemnation.
On a global scale, the 2024 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) indicates that trafficking for forced labor and criminality is on the rise. Factors such as climate change, conflict, and poverty are increasingly leaving vulnerable populations exposed to exploitation, with the report noting a 25% global increase in detected trafficking victims.
Of the total victims identified worldwide, nearly 30,000 are children, accounting for approximately one in every four detected cases. IOM Director General Amy Pope emphasized the severity of the situation in a recent video message, stating, Millions of children on the move face heightened risks of exploitation and trafficking, yet they remain too often invisible in global policies and protection systems.
Domestically, the Home Office has corroborated these trends in its latest end-of-year summary of National Referral Mechanism (NRM) statistics. The data confirms that thousands of children were identified as potential trafficking victims throughout 2025, highlighting the urgent need for more effective intervention and legal accountability.
Reporting by Policy-Wire (PW)
