On March 18, the world will unite against child exploitation.
Say Something If You See Something is an ongoing national campaign to raise awareness of how the business and wider community can be misused for child exploitation and trafficking.
Children can be exploited anywhere and are at risk in public places, including those that are regulated by local councils, police and other agencies. By working in partnership with statutory services, voluntary agencies and people in the community, we aim to tackle child exploitation and trafficking so that our towns, cities, public facilities and places are safer for children and young people.
Safeguarding is Everyone’s Business and everyone in the community has a part to play ~ as the protective ‘eyes and ears’ ~ to recognise and respond to signs of danger. ‘Say Something If You See Something’ is designed to help professionals to engage with the business and wider community, to develop safeguarding practice in a contextual and trauma informed way. We need everyone, everywhere, to recognise that sometimes, there’s something more to what they see or hear and to not make assumptions about a child’s behaviour. Exploited young people don’t always look, or act like victims and can be dismissed as a ‘typical teenager’. So, it’s vital that everyone in the community can spot the signs of child exploitation and trafficking and to do this, we need to work together.
About the Campaign
Say Something if you See Something focuses on how a range of trades, businesses and places in the community can be misused by criminals and perpetrators, to exploit and trafficked children; it contains resources that are designed to assist professionals to promote safeguarding in the community in the following ways:
- Making the business sector and wider community aware of the links between child exploitation and trafficking
- Highlighting the potential for child exploitation to happen within specific settings
- Providing safeguarding compliance and ‘due diligence’ materials for regulators and operators, to improve safeguarding practice and partnership work with the community
- Raising awareness of everyone’s responsibilities to safeguard children and young people
- Helping regulators, business operators and people in the community to recognise and respond to signs of Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking.
For further information please visit: Spot the Warning Signs – STOP CE – (stop-ce.org)