Hundreds of asylum-seeking children went missing from local authority care last year and are now at risk of trafficking and exploitation according to an investigation by Buzzfeed News and BBC 5 Live.

Information received from 140 local authorities in England and Wales revealed that 239 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children went missing from care in 2015, which is an increase of 75% compared with the previous year. Many of these children will have been brought to the UK to be exploited and others risk exploitation as they try to survive independently.

Trafficked children often run away from local authority care because of threats or deception by their exploiters. When they return to their traffickers children face exploitation in cannabis farms, forced labour, petty crime or sexual exploitation.

Key to protecting these children from exploitation is helping them build relationships of trust so they feel safe and able to engage with the authorities be they police, immigration or social services. Specialist child trafficking advocates provide children with stability in a sea of changing faces, someone who does not just accompany them but who can also advocate for their best interests and speak on their behalf in their interactions with all the different professionals that they encounter.

In 2014 the Government started a trial project to provide specialist child trafficking advocates to support children who showed signs of being trafficked. This was then incorporated into the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

However, despite a positive evaluation by the independent team of academics who scrutinised the project, the trial has come to an end and the Government has delayed wider implementation of the scheme. New proposals for the advocates programme were expected to be published in March, but disappointingly these have not yet been released.

Child trafficking advocates alone cannot prevent children going missing, but they can build children’s trust and confidence. They can also help ensure that these children are provided with the best possible care, including safe and supervised accommodation which is vital to preventing children’s disappearance.

CARE continues to call on the Government to implement section 48 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and make child trafficking advocates available to all trafficked children in England and Wales as soon as possible.