Responses to child victims of modern slavery in the United Kingdom: a children's rights perspective

Freedom from slavery is one of the few absolute human rights that exist. While it has been abolished globally, situations of slavery continue to exist today in the form of modern slavery. This paper focuses on child victims of modern slavery in the UK and considers whether responses to these victims align with the requirements of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The article employs the 3 P Framework used to categorise the CRC provision, protection and participation to discuss the rights most relevant for child victims of modern slavery and suggests that there is a particular failure to recognise the importance of childrens participatory rights. The article concludes by offering recommendations for policy, encouraging the participation of children in developing effective anti-slavery policies.