What is ECPAT UK doing to tackle the issue?

Child sexual exploitation is a crime with devastating and long lasting consequences for its victims and their families. Childhoods are lost and family life can be ruined, and this is compounded when victims, or those at risk of abuse, do not receive appropriate, immediate and ongoing support.

ECPAT UK is supporting the rights of children everywhere to be protected against sexual exploitation by UK nationals travelling, working or living abroad. We are doing this in a number of ways:

• We monitor and track cases of child sexual exploitation committed by UK nationals abroad to build a knowledge base that illustrates the scale and severity of children exploited outside the UK and the systemic failure to protect children from UK sex offenders.
• We campaign for stronger national and international legislative frameworks, and international cooperation in law enforcement, to bring offenders to justice.
• We campaign for enhanced child protection systems, both in the UK and internationally, to keep the world’s most vulnerable children safe from sex offenders and ensure child victims are adequately supported.
• We are the UK representative of The Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism, providing training and advice to travel and tourism companies on identifying and protecting children at risk of abuse and exploitation.
• We raise awareness of the issue and provide our expertise to government and civil society partners for changes needed in policy and practices to protect children in the UK and abroad.