Child Trafficking
Guidance
The Home Office, 2024
The UK Home Office has an updated interim guidance for Independent Child Trafficking Guardians (ICTGs), which covers the roles and responsibilities of ICTGs as well as support from public and local authorities.
The Home Office, 2025
Home Office has produced statutory guidance on Modern Slavery. The most recent version was released in January 2025, and the guidance is aimed at staff in England and Wales.
Missing People ‘Good Practice Guidance’
The charities Missing People and The Children’s Society have created a Good Practice Guidance to supporting unaccompanied children who arrive in the UK and are at risk of going missing. The guidance covers why UAS Children go missing, what professionals can do to prevent this, how professionals can work with them to prepare them to stay safer, and what an help the investigation if an unaccompanied child does go missing. The document also includes external resources for professionals.
Police Force Guidance on Missing Migrant Children
The National Police Chiefs’ Council has produced Guidance to Police Forces on Missing Migrant Children. This guidance seeks to provide advice to policing on how to respond to reports of migrant children and seeks to ensure a professional and consistent response across the UK. The primary focus of this document relates to UAS Children, although there are sections on missing migrant families that include children, missing migrant children who have applied for a visa, and missing migrant children who have applied to remain in the UK under the EU Settlement Scheme
ECPAT Child Trafficking in the UK, 2024
ECPAT (Every Child Protected Against Trafficking) UK’s latest snapshot report on child trafficking provides an overview of the issues affecting children in the UK. Compiling the latest statistics and policy developments, the report highlights never-before-seen data on immigration outcomes for child victims, secured through Freedom of Information Act requests.
Department for Education
The Department for Education (DfE) provides statutory guidance on caring for UAS Children and victims of modern slavery. This guidance is for local authorities and staff running local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. It sets out the steps they should take to plan for the provision of support for UAS Children who may be victims of modern slavery.
Resources
Child Exploitation Disruption Toolkit
The Home Office has produced a useful ‘child exploitation disruption toolkit’ for frontline professionals, where they can find strategies to safeguard under 18s from sexual and criminal exploitation.
ECPAT UK, Trafficking Resources
ECPAT UK has produced free online resources to inform children and young people from Vietnam at risk of exploitation. There is a downloadable PDF and a video, both of which have been translated into Vietnamese.
NSPCC
The NSPCC has produced a free online resource for professionals concerned that a child or young person has been trafficked. This includes signs of child trafficking, how to report child trafficking, and support for children and young people.
MICLU ‘Who is Who?’ guide
The who is who? video from the Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit (MICLU) explains who different professionals are in a separated child’s life in the UK.
The information is also available as a document in 11 different languages.
Training
Barnardo’s ICTG Service offers free online awareness sessions on trafficking, the NRM, and modern slavery. You can view their training sessions here.
ECPAT have several training courses on child trafficking. You can see their courses here.
The Children’s Society provides free online sessions on preventing child exploitation. You can view the sessions here.
