Resources: NSPCC workbook for professionals supporting children moved across borders
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A new workbook to help professionals support children who have been trafficked or smuggled across borders has been published by the NSPCC.

The free resource, which can be downloaded online, acts as a guide to help professionals such as social workers or mental health staff ask the right questions to establish what’s happened to a child and what services they might need. The workbook assists professionals in exploring children’s experiences and the potential abuses they have suffered during their movement to the UK.

The guide has been produced by the NSPCC’s Child Trafficking Advice Centre [CTAC], alongside a report entitled, Uprooted and Unprotected, which looks at experiences of children moving across borders that are at risk of being trafficked from Northern France into the UK.

Case files from 196 referrals to CTAC relating to children being moved from France between August 2016 and November 2017 were analysed in the report. Children as young as nine had been moved thousands of miles across borders without their parents, and disappeared from camps like the now-disbanded Calais ‘Jungle’ with limited attempts from officials to find them.

One child referred to CTAC was forced to take heroin and was exploited by adults for criminal activity. Another child, Sabir*, 11, from Afghanistan, said: “I tried [to reach the UK] every night for three and a half months. I tried to get on the lorries but I got caught by police every time.”

The case files and workbooks show children were:

  • sexually abused in some cases;
  • subjected to violence from adult smugglers or traffickers and from police;
  • having to sleep alongside unrelated adults, or in rat-infested or waterlogged tents;
  • keeping weapons to protect themselves;
  • Taking risks to board lorries in attempts to reach the UK – often resulting in injuries.

The NSPCC hopes that the research and the accompanying workbook can help professionals understand the experiences of children who have had to make such a dangerous journey to the UK.

Charlotte Jamieson, CTAC social worker and author of the report, said: “The hardship, danger and violence endured by these children is heart-breaking, and we must listen to their experiences to learn how to better protect children from the harms of trafficking whilst moving across borders.

“It is important as professionals that we acknowledge the seriousness of child abuse and the impact this has on children, regardless of the country the abuse occurred in.

“We hope that the workbook can act as a useful tool for professionals, especially if they’ve not worked with children with these experiences before. ”

Reasons for children having to leave their homes included fear of the Taliban, war, conscription; threats to family or themselves; being orphaned, illegal imprisonment and seeking to find family members already in Europe.

CTAC worked with their seconded Home Office Immigration Officers and Refugee Youth Service to locate and safeguard children who were believed to have been trafficked or at risk of being trafficked from Northern France to the UK. So far 68 have been located, the whereabouts of 128 children are still unknown.

This could be down to children using pseudonyms when fleeing their home countries; misspelling of names in official records; children having moved on to countries other than the UK; or children arriving in the UK but not being known to authorities.

The Child Trafficking Advice Centre offers advice to professionals who are concerned that a child may have been trafficked into or out of the UK. For more information, visit www.nspcc.org.uk/ctacborders.

*Names have been changed to protect anonymity.
Picture (c) Pixabay.