Child exploitation | Children's Policy & Practice Hub

Child exploitation describes a situation where an exploiter (who could be an adult or a peer) takes advantage of the child for their own personal or financial gain or gratification. It is based on a power imbalance in the relationship between the child and their exploiter and enables the exploiter to control the movement and behaviour of the child.

Very often there is an interface between harm, exploitation and going missing, and for this reason CSSW has a designated officer, the Missing and Child Exploitation Co-ordinator, who is responsible for oversight of missing episodes and exploitation of children in Camden.

Child exploitation is a form of modern slavery and can take various forms but the main forms of exploitation in Camden are child sexual exploitation (CSE) and child criminal exploitation (CCE) in the form of county lines drug dealing.

The CSCP multi-agency extra-familial harm and child exploitation guidance provides information on child exploitation and extra-familial harm and describes how social workers should work with partner agencies to engage with young people at risk in order to reduce risk.

When dealing with cases involving child exploitation social workers should follow the child exploitation policy and procedures.

This child exploitation flowchart provides an overview of how exploitation works.