Growing number of children are potential slavery victims as conviction rate falls, report says

More than 7,000 children were identified as potential victims of trafficking and modern slavery last year, a rise of 17%, the UK's anti-slavery commissioner has said.

Eleanor Lyons and children's charity ECPAT UK warned in a report published on Wednesday that there were fewer than 20 convictions in cases flagged for both child abuse and trafficking.

A total of 7,045 children were referred as potential victims in 2025, said the report, released to mark Anti-Slavery Week.

More than six in 10 were British nationals, and the report warned the figures may only be the tip of the iceberg.

Thousands of other children may be going unidentified, with social services recording more than 30,000 assessment episodes involving criminal or sexual exploitation in England alone, the study said.

In England, that total included 16,250 assessment episodes involving child criminal exploitation, 12,400 involving child sexual exploitation and a further 2,250 involving trafficking in the year to March 2025, according to figures from children's social services.

The report said many end up in county lines operations, being exploited by criminal gangs to transport drugs, commit theft and other offences, while others face sexual exploitation, forced labour and abuse within homes and workplaces.

Ms Lyons told Sky News that youngsters are being "sexually exploited by criminal gangs or held in county lines groups", and the majority are British boys.

The report cautions that the figures are not directly comparable with trafficking referrals and may include repeat assessments of the same child.

But, despite the alarming rise in referrals, there were only 17 convictions in cases flagged as involving both modern slavery or trafficking and child abuse, down from 38 in 2024, the report claims, quoting analysis of Crown Prosecution Service data.

Ms Lyons told The News Hour With Mark Austin the overall effect is "children across the country being robbed of their childhood".

When children are trafficked and exploited, they are being "sexually exploited by criminal gangs or held in county lines groups, forced to deal drugs right across the country. And sadly, we're seeing that number rise every single year, with more and more British kids being exploited and harmed", she said.

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Ms Lyons said she has "spoken to children who are exploited from the age of eight", and "every year we're seeing the age get younger and younger of children who are being exploited".

"The statistics and the figures show that whilst there are children of all nationalities, the majority are British boys."

Perpetrators, though, are becoming "more ruthless, going younger and younger and even targeting children in primary schools, grooming them, offering them maybe gifts or offering to buy them lunch, and then following up the next day with threats, with violence, and forcing them to carry out criminal acts on the gang's behalf".

She called on ministers to do more to prevent harm happening to children across the UK, including establishing a national child exploitation strategy, improving early identification and prevention, and strengthening police investigations and prosecutions.

Sky News has approached the Home Office for comment.

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