Slavery, Trafficking and Exploitation: County Lines

I had been wanting to write about the investigation of slavery, trafficking and exploitation, specifically county lines, for some time but could not quite bring the content together. As I reflected, it slowly occurred to me that to investigate this type of abuse first requires its recognition. Now, that may sound rather obvious, however it is not the signs or symptoms of exploitation, nor its presence, that I refer to (these are routinely documented, and possibly what led to my initial difficulty). It is how exploitation is understood and characterised within the statutory framework.

Recognising Abuse

Many of the tools and approaches developed have laid foundation for exploitation to be understood as cumulative factors that equate to a threshold of threat rather than active and ongoing abuse. When an incident occurs, such as arrest, missing episode, or assault, risk is frequently observed to have increased rather than a confirmation, or indication, of continued abuse. The consequence of this is that attention is routinely focussed upon the immediate circumstance; ‘harm’ is framed as only occurring, or substantiated, when an incident arises – the child being ‘at risk’ the remainder of the time. This mischaracterisation of a child’s experience means that while factors are outlined, they can be observed in isolation or as ‘static’ and therefore not understood as representative of ‘active’ harm within a context of influence, coercion, and control.

If we are clear that a child who is groomed, recruited, and coerced to transport drugs, money, and weapons, as in the case of county lines, is in fact a victim of trafficking and modern-day slavery, does that assist the recognition of exploitation as ongoing and significant abuse?

Arranging and facilitating refers to “the recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring, or receiving, or transferring or exchanging control over,” a victim (s2.3, MSA 2015).

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 defines the arranging or facilitating of an individual’s travel with a view to them being exploited as human trafficking. While the abuse may often be exemplified by serious incident(s), the absence of such harm – or disclosure – does not mean ‘no evidence’ of active exploitation. There is an urgent need to understand the nature, frequency, severity, and imminence of harm. The threshold is very much met.

Investigating abuse: Modern Day Slavery

When slavery or trafficking is suspected, the National referral mechanism should be utilised. The process will determine whether there are reasonable grounds, (and later conclusive grounds) to consider an individual the victim of modern slavery. This process triggers a police investigation into suspected modern-day slavery. What this means is that the suspected criminal abuse of a child is being investigated by the police. It is my view that these investigations need to be conducted jointly with children’s social care as alongside the need for a clear strategy to investigate, a robust strategy to safeguard is required.

We know that children who are exploited may not talk to authorities. There may be several reasons for this, and partners need to work jointly and tenaciously in their interrogation and analysis of multiple sources of information, to both identify exploiters and protect children. On that point, there is a distinct difference between the mapping of a peer group and authorities being clear in their role to identify and investigate organised criminal groups targeting children.

The need for statutory services to align their responses to slavery, trafficking and exploitation in this context is urgent. It will require review of how the different strands of missing, exploitation, safeguarding, and investigation come together – making collaborative policing and safeguarding decisions throughout investigations and strengthening the collective response to immediate and severe harm.

But there is a bigger shift required across children’s social care and that is to resist the move to position harm outside of the family home as harm outside of the statutory process. The harm, which is significant, requires joint investigation and a focus on what needs to change around the child by way of increasing safety and protection from those causing harm. It is the failure to recognise and investigate harm fully that contributes to responsibility being located solely with the child and their family.

In my experience, the rigour of a joint child protection investigation that brings together key partners including health, police and social work is not matched by any alternative process. For children suffering exploitation – where routinely sexual, criminal, physical and emotional abuse intersect – all partners are required to understand and respond to the child’s harm comprehensively. The structure is there to investigate and protect; it is often not the ‘child protection process’ that is problematic but how it is administered.

‘Safeguarding’

Much is written about ‘safeguarding’ – what do we mean by this and how do services determine what is required and at what point? I think that the first point to make is that there is an important distinction between working to increase safety generally in a context and responding to children in acute need. We are often intervening in spaces and with children who require both preventative and protective approaches and we must recognise the value in working to deliver safer communities.

For children who are enslaved, trafficked, and exploited however, there is a very real need to recognise that they cannot ‘think’ their way out of debt bondage or ‘decide’ their way free of coercion – they need protection. That is not to say that direct intervention with children and families is not also required, but the law makes clear that in the case of trafficking, it is ‘irrelevant’ whether an individual consents. If intervention relies upon behavioural change alone, the child’s suspected slavery and trafficking has not been sufficiently recognised.

Some children are in danger and require immediate action. In the absence of this, children return directly to those exploiting and abusing them and may also suffer additional harm. It is critical that slavery, trafficking, and exploitation is identified to prevent decisions that result in a child continuing to suffer extensive and significant abuse when the evidence is clear.