Increased investment in youth services and expanded access to the Holiday Food and Activities Programme are key to reducing the risk of child exploitation over the summer holidays, according to Barnardo’s.
In its new briefing paper Child Exploitation: A Hidden Crisis, the charity warns that the pressure of the cost-of-living crisis on families combined with children being out of school during the summer break could “increase the risk of child exploitation, with those who seek to exploit children seeking to use adversity to coerce children into criminal and sexual activity”.
In a survey of Barnardo’s practitioners, carried out in February, almost half of those asked said they feel that children and young people are at a greater risk of being sexually and/or criminally exploited due to the cost-of-living crisis.
“When children are out of school and unsupervised, including during school holidays, they may be more vulnerable to exploitation. Evidence shows that even being missing from school for a short time, such as being missing for part of the school day, can increase the risk of both sexual and criminal exploitation,” the briefing paper adds.
