This paper incorporates research published up to mid-November 2025.
Key messages
Challenges relating to definitions of child sexual exploitation include difficulties delineating the boundaries between this and other forms of child sexual abuse. These challenges contribute to confusion and inconsistency in application, hindering the identification of sexually exploited children and posing challenges for practice responses.
Child sexual exploitation is perpetrated in many ways, mainly by males. Online and in-person exploitation can occur separately and overlap.
Networks for child sexual exploitation are often far from organised, and generally do not come together with a specific intent to sexually exploit children. The concept of ‘grooming gangs’ is not clearly defined, does not correspond to any established legal categories, is not captured clearly in any official data sets, and its use often reflects a racialised stereotype disproportionally targeting Asian and Muslim men.
Data on the ethnicity of offenders is of poor quality; the limited evidence suggests that no one ethnic group is predisposed to offending.
Vulnerability to child sexual exploitation is formed by structural forces, situational dynamics and individual factors. Research has identified some particular patterns of sexual exploitation for children within diverse cultural contexts, alongside barriers to disclosure and access to support. Being raised in economically disadvantaged communities and experiencing racism has been found to make Black children vulnerable. Disabled children have specific vulnerabilities and require distinct considerations relating to responses, including meeting individual impairment needs. Isolation and lack of acceptance relating to sexuality or gender identity can lead children to seek support via adult groups and settings, increasing their vulnerability to sexual exploitation. Looked-after children are also significantly vulnerable, but carefully chosen placements can reduce risks.
While boys as well as girls are sexually exploited, boys can be ‘hidden’ victims/survivors owing to the predominant focus upon girls in strategic and practice responses.
Child sexual exploitation and criminal exploitation can take place together: sexual abuse can be a means of initiation into criminal activities and control.
Some children are less likely to receive support and are treated as responsible for the harm they experience. Children can have both vulnerability and agency, requiring a balanced approach to reconcile risk and protection. Professionals benefit from taking an intersectional approach and applying curiosity and judgement to explore children’s needs and circumstances.
Practitioners acknowledge that responses to child sexual exploitation do not require disclosure by the child, but can be based on recognition of risks, signs and indicators and forming an assessment. Assessments should enable practitioners to distinguish between risk and harm, and to accurately identify children at risk of sexual exploitation and those being exploited.
Multi-agency approaches enable organisations to contribute their specific roles while developing shared actions. Contextual safeguarding offers a framework for responding to harm that children face outside the home. Trauma-informed practice can support meeting children’s needs and avoid victim-blaming and punishment. Listening to the child and their family is crucial, with benefits to professionals of working collaboratively with parents to increase children’s safety.
Design and delivery of prevention measures must avoid embedding existing inequalities and problematic attitudes towards children. Disruption measures are key to prevention.
Given the links between harmful sexual behaviour and being sexually exploited, responses to children who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour benefit from recognising and responding to traumatic experiences, and considering the wider social networks and spaces that set the context for this behaviour.
Defining child sexual exploitation
While it can be argued that all child sexual abuse is exploitative, the term ‘child sexual exploitation’ has developed a specific meaning which has changed over time. According to the UK Government’s current definition, applying in England:
“Child sexual exploitation is a form of child sexual abuse. It occurs when an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into sexual activity (a) in exchange for something the victim needs or wants, and/or (b) for the financial advantage or increased status of the perpetrator or facilitator. The victim may have been sexually exploited even if the sexual activity appears consensual. Child sexual exploitation does not always involve physical contact; it can also occur through the use of technology.” ([i])
The Welsh Government defines child sexual exploitation in similar ways, again recognising it as a form of child sexual abuse which involves some form of exchange:
“[The abuse] can include sex or any form of sexual activity with a child; the production of indecent images and/or any other indecent material involving children. […] The exchange can include the giving or withdrawal of something […] Children may not recognise the exploitative nature of the relationship or exchange. Children may feel that they have given consent. […] Exchange is a fundamental part of abuse through CSE. The involvement of exchange is what makes CSE distinct from other forms of child sexual abuse. The thing that is exchanged can be:
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- Material things and experiences – money, goods, food, alcohol, drugs, accommodation, parties, trips.
- Things related to feelings – the meeting of an emotional need or a need related to self-esteem, feeling wanted, feeling that they belong, loved, in control and/or important.
- Things related to the need to be safe – the need to be free from threats and physical violence or threats to someone that the child cares about.” ([ii])
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse concluded that the unique feature of child sexual exploitation is that children are “controlled, coerced, manipulated or deceived into sexual activity”, and that emphasis on exchange in definitions may not be appropriate. Current definitions of child sexual exploitation have also been criticised and recognised as problematic to use in practice. There are difficulties delineating the boundaries between child sexual exploitation and other forms of child sexual abuse, leading to inconsistencies in how definitions are applied. This includes practitioners recording any extra-familial child sexual abuse as exploitation or considering that sexual abuse happens to children under the age of ten and sexual exploitation to older children. Definitional and recording challenges relating to child sexual exploitation have hindered:
- identification of children who experience, or are at risk of, child sexual exploitation
- accurate recording of child sexual exploitation
- practice responses
- identification of people who sexually abuse children.
Child sexual exploitation is not associated with a single specific criminal offence but falls within broader sexual offences legislation, with prosecutions utilising multiple sections of core legislation such as the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
Despite challenges, child sexual exploitation remains a recognised form of child sexual abuse requiring practice and strategic responses from professionals.
Who sexually exploits children, and how?
Most people involved in sexually exploiting children are male; there is limited evidence of females perpetrating or facilitating child sexual exploitation. While the number of under-18s involved in sexually exploiting other children is not known, they can be involved as facilitators, abusers or bystanders; exploitative contexts and dynamics can lead children to harm others.
Child sexual exploitation can take many forms, and children can be sexually exploited by people of their own age or significantly older, and by individuals or groups/networks. In-person and online sexual exploitation can occur separately or overlap. Online dynamics, features and narratives interact to change and increase the harms of contact abuse. For example, grooming can take place online and children can be threatened/blackmailed with the sharing of sexual or nude images. Technological developments have resulted in increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate child sexual abuse material, posing threat and harm to children; AI tools are also being used to create fake child profiles and personas, through which children can be groomed online for sexual exploitation.
That children may appear to cooperate cannot be taken as consent, as they are likely to be subject to grooming, coercion and control.
Networked and/or group-based child sexual exploitation
While there is limited evidence that distinguishes between networks and groups in relation to child sexual exploitation, both terms are used, with ‘networks’ tending to be used to describe more organised elements, and ‘groups’ to include formal and informal associations including friendship groups. Family members can also be involved in organised child sexual exploitation.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse defined an organised network as two or more individuals having an association with one another and involved in the sexual exploitation of children; it used the term ‘organised’ simply to denote the facilitation and cooperation among individuals in networks, irrespective of the degree of organisation. The networks themselves are often far from organised, lacking a leader or hierarchy and with loose connections.
One study found that networks were not generally motivated by a specific sexual interest in children, and did not come together with the specific intent of sexually exploiting them: unlike individuals who operate alone in sexually exploiting children, they appeared to seek contact with vulnerable children who were easy to access and exploit in a number of ways. Membership of networks, and the children they exploit, are characterised by pre-existing social relationships based on shared kinships, friendships, neighbourhoods, schools and places of work and worship. Any organised element to groups or networks may relate to other offences such as supplying illegal drugs; drugs provide opportunities for grooming, including by drawing children to specific locations, creating debt and dependency, and lowering inhibitions and resistance to abuse.
Analysis of data relating to group-based child sexual abuse as recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2023 found that one in six (17%, n=717) of these offences were classed as child sexual exploitation; other forms of group-based child sexual abuse included familial, institutional and ritualistic. Self-defined ethnicity was only available for a third of suspects across all forms of child sexual abuse, and broadly reflected the population aged ten and above in England and Wales. Reviews of available evidence have recognised that police data on offenders’ ethnicity is of poor quality, noting “it is likely that no one community or culture is uniquely predisposed to offending”. There is also a recognised gap in the quality of ethnicity data collected by statutory and voluntary-sector services working with people who experience and perpetrate child sexual exploitation.
Linked to networked and group-based child sexual exploitation is the concept of ‘grooming gangs’. This term developed from a 2011 report in The Times claiming that Pakistani and Muslim men were acting in gangs to groom and sexually exploit female children, and became “firmly established in popular and political discourse in the UK”. The term does not correspond to any established legal categories, is not captured clearly in any official data sets, and reflects a racialised stereotype disproportionally targeting Asian and Muslim men.
Factors affecting children’s vulnerability to sexual exploitation and responses to them
Any child can be at risk of sexual exploitation, but particular experiences and characteristics can mean some children are at greater risk. These include, but are not limited to, prior abuse in the family, including sexual abuse; economic deprivation; homelessness; substance misuse; disability; being in care; ‘running away’/going missing; and ‘gang-association’. Sexually exploited children have been found to be more likely to have experienced some form of familial sexual abuse or sexual abuse/rape outside the family. Some of the above indicators also appear to be present in children who are sexually exploited in online contexts.
These indicators of child sexual exploitation are not evidence that it has taken place, or that there is a risk of it, but they highlight the need for professional curiosity and judgement to explore children’s unmet needs and circumstances. The Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre) has developed a Signs and Indicators Template to help professionals systematically observe, record and communicate concerns about possible child sexual abuse.
Guiding principles to support the use of tools in assessing child sexual exploitation include being clear about a tool’s purpose; applying professional judgement in the use of tools and the procedures/processes within which they are embedded; clearly distinguishing risk from harm; and avoiding scoring.
Vulnerability to child sexual exploitation is clearly influenced by structural forces and situational dynamics as well as individual factors; structural inequalities shape some children’s experiences of sexual exploitation and are embedded in system responses including child protection.
Some children are less likely to receive support and are treated as responsible for the harm they experience. Adultification occurs when notions of vulnerability and innocence are grounded in bias, particularly racial bias, and a child is viewed as more grown-up, so they are inappropriately expected to behave and think as an adult.
Aspects of a child’s socio-economic background, personal characteristics and/or experiences may be met with discriminatory responses, and sexually exploited children perceived as “responsible, complicit, or more resilient and able to withstand maltreatment”. Understanding structural inequalities’ impacts on children’s experiences is key, alongside ensuring that professional responses play no part in reinforcing inequalities.
While most sexually exploited children are girls, boys are also sexually exploited, including through organised networks. Boys can be described as ‘hidden’ victims/survivors because strategic and practice responses focus on girls. Lack of understanding of the sexual exploitation of boys has played a part in gendered attitudes and assumptions among professionals, resulting in a failure to recognise abuse. Barriers preventing professionals and boys themselves from recognising their sexual exploitation include notions of what it means to be male – with ‘maleness’ perceived as being incompatible with victimisation – as well as constructions of heterosexual masculinity and homophobia. It is important to view and respond to any child, irrespective of their sex or any other characteristic, foremost as a child.
Looked-after children’s significant vulnerability to child sexual exploitation can relate to unmet emotional and economic needs. Teenagers in care are six times more likely than other children to be sexually exploited; those with multiple placement moves or unstable social worker relationships are at higher risk. Carefully chosen placements that meet children’s individual needs can reduce risk of sexual exploitation. While there is mixed evidence about the effectiveness of out-of-area placements for children who are sexually exploited, these placements can work well if the child is consulted about the decision and supported, and if the placement addresses problems from the child’s perspective; disruption of those perpetrating the child sexual exploitation is also required. Evidence highlights the importance of transition planning, working through complexities relating to the treatment of mental health conditions, and ensuring that care staff are supported to be knowledgeable about trauma-informed responses.
Disabled children have specific vulnerabilities to sexual exploitation. A review of 205 Welsh children’s services case files found that 9.3% of sexually exploited children had a learning disability/developmental condition. Vulnerability can stem from societal treatment of disabled children and a failure to give them support to develop healthy relationships; they may have impairment factors such as limits to recognising risk and exploitation, impulsive behaviours, needs associated with understanding social interactions and communication, and limited capacity to consent to sexual activity. Specific considerations to support disabled children who experience, or are at risk of, sexual exploitation are found in an evidence-based practice guide.
The limited research findings addressing the sexual exploitation of children who are lesbian, gay or bisexual, and/or questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity, has revealed factors relating to exploration of sexuality along with an acceptance by some people – including some professionals – of sexual relationships between adult males and male children. Isolation and experiencing a lack of acceptance relating to sexual orientation and gender identity can also lead children to seek support via adult groups and settings.
Regarding children from minority ethnic backgrounds, South Asian young women have been recognised as ‘missing from discourse’ and facing cultural practices that form barriers to disclosure and seeking support. Research relating to Asian, Eastern European, Roma and Traveller children has identified different patterns of child sexual exploitation within diverse cultural contexts; barriers to disclosure, identification of risk, access to services and the lack of resources to undertake work with diverse groups have been identified, alongside the need for professionals to develop wider understanding of children’s communities. Research into network-based child sexual exploitation has found that children from diverse backgrounds are exploited but that the specific needs of some of these children have been ignored.
Being raised in economically disadvantaged communities and experiencing racism can make Black children particularly vulnerable to child sexual exploitation. Unconscious race-based bias contributes to how Black children are treated in education, health, justice and child protection systems: they are perceived as less innocent – and therefore as less in need of protection – than White children and treated as older than their age and more culpable for their actions. Black girls can be sexually exploited by gangs, facing multiple forms of abuse in that context, including racially motivated abuse. Racist narratives and negative stereotypes about Black males and their involvement in criminality and violence, can prevent understanding and identifying Black boys as victims of sexual violence. Taking an intersectional approach supports both understanding the complex and subtle challenges faced by Black children at risk of child sexual exploitation and relational practice, alongside recognising the complex contextual factors that frame Black children’s lives. As an analytical framework examining how aspects of a person’s identities combine and intersect to create discrimination and privilege, intersectionality generally supports understanding children’s experiences of sexual exploitation and ensuring appropriate responses.
Avoiding victim-blaming language and working with risk and agency
Barriers to understanding child sexual exploitation and meeting children’s needs can be reflected in professionals’ language. Referring to a child’s ‘risky behaviour’ and ‘lifestyle’, for example, plays a part in normalising exploitative contexts. Language requires careful consideration to reduce victim-blaming and maximise engagement with children. Assessments should enable professionals to distinguish between risk and harm, and to accurately identify children at risk of child sexual exploitation and those who are already experiencing, or have experienced, child sexual exploitation.
‘Risky behaviours’ are sometimes considered as a problem in themselves, not as a risk factor for child sexual exploitation; this hinders recognition and appropriate response to abuse. Children’s anger or frustration can be reinforced when professionals focus on risks and perceive the child as the problem, particularly when responses centre upon changing children’s behaviours but not their circumstances. Evidence supports a more dynamic approach to managing risk and addressing wellbeing in responses to child sexual exploitation. This includes recognising peer relationships as sources of both support and harm, and as a protective factor against child sexual exploitation. It is important to gain a balanced understanding of peer relationships for assessments, planning and interventions with children and their peer groups.
Complex dynamics are at play when considering children’s ability to make informed choices and take actions in the context of child sexual exploitation: desire and meaning in sexual relationships, and understanding of abuse and exploitation, can co-exist. Recognising children’s agency does not mean shifting responsibility for abuse to the child. There is a need for practitioners to adopt an integrated position of ‘both/and’, as opposed to ‘either/or’, signifying that children make their own choices and may engage in risk-taking behaviours while also requiring protection. To manage this balance requires recognition that children can have both vulnerability and agency, alongside being simultaneously struggling and competent, and exploited and autonomous. Enabling practitioners to explore this within safe, reflective spaces can help to address any tensions and concerns when working to reconcile risk and protection.
Child sexual exploitation, offending and child criminal exploitation
Sexually exploited children are sometimes misidentified as offenders, but some may become involved in offending behaviour as a consequence of their exploitation. Children may be coerced to commit offences alongside their abusers, warranting further consideration of the links between youth offending and child sexual exploitation. People involved in group-based child sexual exploitation may coerce their victims to engage in criminal activities, including the recruitment of other children for exploitation. Within networks, children can be recruited or forced into the preparation, holding or selling of drugs. Fear of repercussion may prevent children from reporting child sexual exploitation to the police and other professionals.
Child criminal exploitation occurs when a group or individual coerces, controls, manipulates or deceives a child into criminal activity in exchange for something the child needs or wants, for financial or other gain of the person facilitating and/or through violence or threat of violence. There is significant overlap with child sexual exploitation: children may be sexually exploited as initiation into criminal activities and to coerce or control, and many children in child sexual exploitation networks also experience criminal exploitation.
Increased awareness of child criminal exploitation has affected identification of child sexual exploitation, with a move away from discussion of child sexual exploitation to ‘child exploitation’. Ian Critchley, National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for child protection, has noted continuing shifts in focus and resourcing between child sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation, when there needs to be a nuanced response to both.
Responses that meet children’s and families’ needs
The importance of integrated multi-agency approaches – including both statutory and voluntary-sector organisations – to preventing, disrupting and responding to child sexual exploitation is well recognised. Strategic planning in partnership and joined-up working have been found to be essential to an effective response.
Contextual safeguarding offers a vision, approaches and framework for how safeguarding partnerships and children’s social care can respond to harm, including child sexual exploitation, faced by young people outside the home, in settings including neighbourhoods, schools, peer groups and online spaces. Contextual safeguarding supports professionals to understand structural inequalities and systemic harm, alongside promoting shared responsibility across settings and agencies to support responses to children and their families.
Within policing, a programme to improve the investigation of rape and serious sexual offences identified “tangible changes [that] would produce a procedurally just outcome for victims”. The resulting National operating model highlights the importance of ensuring that the full context of these offences is considered, including centring victims’ rights and needs throughout the investigation process.
As child sexual exploitation can be a form of slavery, there is scope to utilise the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to protect child victims of networked and group-based sexual exploitation. A National Referral Mechanism referral should also be considered.
When working with children who have been sexually exploited, applying trauma theory and trauma-informed principles supports meeting their needs, and avoids victim blaming and responses that punish the child. This includes understanding how trauma influences a child’s view, choices and actions; showing culturally competent understanding of the contexts in which children are sexually exploited; ensuring that children who have been exploited and controlled are not retraumatised through restrictive approaches to keeping them safe; recognising that it may take a long time for children to feel safe; and giving professionals the time and flexibility to build trust-based relationships. Professionals benefit from supervisory arrangements able to address working with trauma through formal and informal reflective support.
Professionals are accustomed to identifying, recognising and recording child sexual exploitation based on signs and indicators that it may be happening, rather than waiting for children to say they are being sexually exploited. Nevertheless, feeling able to tell someone what is happening or has happened to them can significantly improve children’s emotional/mental health and capacity to recover; listening to children and their families is crucial, otherwise clear disclosures and non-verbal presentation of abuse may be missed. The Communicating with Children Guide developed by the CSA Centre offers detailed information to support professionals whose role brings them into contact with children. Practitioners must also be able to work confidently to explore risks and changing behaviours with children who may not accept they are unsafe. Having a supportive adult who can undertake direct work over a long period of time is key; children often prefer having one key worker who shows they care and does not withdraw when the child disengages or ‘acts up’.
Child sexual exploitation is extremely difficult for parents/carers and the wider family. Parents/carers may benefit from support relating to their relationships with their child, their emotional wellbeing, dealing with systems, and building resilience and sources of support. It is important for professionals to avoid stigmatising and blaming parents/carers, and to work collaboratively with them as partners to increase their children’s safety. The CSA Centre’s Supporting Parents and Carers Guide provides further information.
Children referred to specialist services because they have experienced child sexual exploitation, or are at risk, have similarly high levels of past trauma as those referred to services addressing harmful sexual behaviour; responses to them need to recognise and respond to their traumatic experiences. There is a need for practitioners to be reflexive regarding their assumptions about sexual norms and behaviours, particularly in relation to gender, and perceptions of vulnerability and risk. It is also important to consider wider social networks and spaces that create the context for harmful sexual behaviour. This is particularly pertinent to victims/survivors of child sexual exploitation who have recruited other children to be exploited. They may, for example, have “naively” introduced their friends to exploitation networks by including them in their social activities, or have actively managed or abused other children on behalf of those exploiting them; engagement in offending behaviours may also be to please the person exploiting them or reduce their own abuse.
Prevention
Because of its short- and long-term impacts on physical and psychological health, and associated costs, child sexual exploitation is a major public health concern warranting systematic responses. Approaches must be evidence-based, integrated across programmes and services, and meet diverse needs. Outreach work benefits from a scoping stage to assess local needs, identify effective strategies, and engage the right partners and agencies. Outreach should be tailored to different communities and involve professionals and community members with knowledge of diverse groups. It needs to be flexible while maintaining clear goals and prioritising the safety and welfare of professionals and children.
As a sole intervention, preventative awareness-raising approaches in schools are identified as having limited effects in safeguarding children from sexual exploitation. However, they may offer a culture of transparency about child sexual exploitation and shared language, and opportunities for children to disclose. To support positive effects on children’s knowledge and attitudes, schools should take a whole school approach and integrate substantial sustained awareness-raising into existing personal, social, health and economic education curricula and school policies; adopt a needs-based approach; work collaboratively with pupils, parents, and communities; be inclusive of boys and tailored to children from diverse backgrounds; and have credible facilitators utilising a variety of active teaching methods which engage diverse learning styles. It is also necessary to ensure that resources, such as films, and approaches to school-based prevention do not traumatise children.
Disruption measures are key to prevention. Examples considered useful include child abduction warning notices; automatic number plate recognition; CCTV; Police National Computer markers; risk flagging of vehicles, property or people; sexual risk orders (SROs) and sexual harm prevention orders (SHPOs); and identification of images on the Child Abuse Image Database. The Home Office’s Child Exploitation Disruption Toolkit includes guidance on, for example, how to use SROs and SHPOs.
Wider prevention of child sexual exploitation requires addressing prevailing conditions including poverty, race-based and gendered inequalities, and societal attitudes; the design and delivery of prevention measures must not further embed existing inequalities and problematic attitudes towards children.
[i] Department for Education (2023) Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023: A Guide to Multi-agency Working to Help, Protect and Promote the Welfare of Children, pages 154–155.
[ii] Welsh Government (2021) Working Together to Safeguard People, Volume 7 – Safeguarding Children from Child Sexual Exploitation, pages 7–8.
Find the earlier 2017 editions of our Key messages from research papers on child sexual exploitation on the CSA Centre publications list.