Practitioner Responses to Child Trafficking: Emerging Good Practice - Cumberland Lodge Report

Figure 3: Diagram reproduced from the Children’s Society 2019 report on child criminal exploitation77 Vulnerability indicators Criminal exploitation affects children of various backgrounds, with all children ultimately being vulnerable to exploitation.

Despite this, there are a number of risk factors that result in increased susceptibility to child criminal exploitation. This is no reflection on the child but instead reflects how perpetrators can prey on perceived vulnerabilities when targeting children.

Responsibility for abuse/exploitation therefore always lies with the perpetrators who abuse/exploit children and cause them harm; irrespective of the behaviour or circumstances of a child – if there is no perpetrator, there will be no abuse/exploitation of a child.78 Factors such as living in poverty, family breakdown, looked after status, learning disabilities, frequently going missing or being excluded from school can all leave children 58