‘They’re not seeing young people as victims’: Professional perspectives on policy and practice for criminally exploited children in Wales

Maxwell, Nina ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3931-7729, Khurana, Kriti and Cserző, Dorottya ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2676-9427 2026. ‘They’re not seeing young people as victims’: Professional perspectives on policy and practice for criminally exploited children in Wales. Youth Justice 10.1177/14732254261428267

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Abstract

Despite the United Kingdom’s robust child protection policies and approaches to modern slavery, no specific UK-wide policy addresses the criminal exploitation of children. This paper presents multi-agency focus group and survey findings from a commissioned study which examined the adoption of policy and practice in Wales. Rather than a Wales-led, child-rights national framework, participants encountered inconsistency between a preponderance and absence of relevant guidance from the United Kingdom and Wales. Participants wanted the separation of criminal exploitation from the Modern Slavery Act 2015, a legal definition and amendment of the Children Acts 1989 and 2004 to include exploitation as a separate category of child abuse.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education) Research Institutes & Centres > Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre (CASCADE) Research Institutes & Centres > Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods (WISERD)
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
ISSN:	1473-2254
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	14 April 2026
Last Modified:	14 Apr 2026 11:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/186376

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