Child Exploitation is a type of abuse. It means using children or young people unfairly, taking advantage of them for selfish reasons. Sometimes a person will target a child and try to trick them into trusting them by being giving things, like gifts, drugs, money, status and affection. This is known as ‘grooming‘ and it is used for both criminal exploitation and sexual exploitation. When they have gained the child’s trust the adult abuses their power for their own needs.
Organised criminal gangs groom children and young people because children are less suspicious and are given lighter sentences than adults. Criminals may be more likely to groom children who live in poverty, face exclusion from mainstream school, or are in care, young people in gangs can also be exploited. It can happen to anyone.
Children can also be taken to other places, either close by or far away, to be exploited, this is known as Trafficking.
Whether the child is exploited for sexual reasons, using them to do work for nothing or to join in with criminal activity, such as selling drugs children are not to blame for the abuse they experience.
Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)
Child sexual exploitation (CSE) is a type of sexual abuse and can happen in person or via online abuse. Anybody can be a perpetrator of CSE, no matter their age, gender or race. Children and young people are often tricked into believing they're in a loving and consensual relationship. This is called grooming abuse. They may trust their abuser and not understand that they're being abused. Children and young people who are exploited may also be used to 'find' or get others to join groups.
An abuser will gain a child's trust to control them, this can happen in a short period of time. They may lend them large sums of money or use financial abuse, sometimes abusers use violence or blackmail to frighten a child or young person before moving onto sexual abuse.
When a child is sexually exploited online they might be persuaded or forced to:
- send or post sexually explicit images of themselves
- film or stream sexual activities
- have sexual conversations.
Once an abuser has images, video or copies of conversations, they might use threats and blackmail to force a young person to take part in other sexual activity. They may also share the images and videos with others or circulate them online.
Criminal Exploitation
Criminal exploitation is child abuse where children and young people are persuaded or forced into committing crimes.
Young people are groomed into exploitation and abuse both online and offline. They may be sexually abused, made to launder money for criminals through their own bank accounts, or coerced into committing crimes like carrying weapons, stealing from shops or transporting drugs - this is sometimes called 'County Lines'.
Child Trafficking
Trafficking is where children and young people are tricked, forced or persuaded to leave their homes and are moved or transported and then exploited, forced to work or sold. Children are trafficked for:
- sexual exploitation
- benefit fraud
- forced marriage
- domestic slavery like cleaning, cooking and childcare
- forced labour in factories or agriculture
- committing crimes, like begging, theft, working on cannabis farms or moving drugs.
Trafficked children experience many types of abuse and neglect. Traffickers use physical abuse, sexual abuse and emotional abuse as a form of control. Children and young people are also likely to be physically and emotionally neglected and may experience sexual exploitation.
Content on this page has been adapted from the NSPCC website and links to that site are included to help you find more information about how to recognise exploitation, what to do and where to find help.