17 July 2024
Sonya Jones MBE, Young Person’s Service Manager and Safeguarding Lead at WithYou in Shropshire said:
“We welcome today’s announcement that the UK will strengthen legislation to protect children exploited for criminal purposes.
“While young people aged 14-17 are most likely to be targeted, children as young as seven have been victims of county lines. These children often experience emotional and psychological trauma due to the violence they’ve seen, and in some cases, are forced to complete themselves.
“WithYou has been calling for these changes for a number of years: we know that county lines are often an issue of child criminal exploitation, and that young people involved in county lines are themselves victims of crime, regardless of their actions. This change in legislation must focus on targeting adult exploiters, and not the young people who have been exploited and coerced into a cycle of criminality and violence - violence they have seen and been subjected to.
“While today’s announcement is positive, this is a complex problem and we recognise that there is still much more work to do to prevent it from happening. Currently, knowledge of children who are at risk of being criminally exploited is not always being shared between statutory and non-statutory agencies across the country. As such, we are calling for a standalone, public health based National Child Criminal Exploitation Strategy that enforces a more joined-up approach. We want to see any professionals working with children accurately share intelligence and recording of concerns facing any child at risk.”