UK's First Project for Trafficked Children Poised to Open in Bristol

Bristol-based anti-trafficking charity Unseen is preparing to open the UK’s first care and accommodation centre for child victims of trafficking. It already runs a 24-hour safe-house for women survivors but is now responding to the acute need to provide a place of safety and refuge where children can regain their childhood.

Unseen’s Projects Director and founder Kate Garbers is responsible for the project: “This project is urgently needed. Many people don’t believe trafficking and slavery still happens today, but it does. Children are being brought over from countries like Vietnam, Nigeria and Slovakia to work in cannabis factories, to beg, to be used as domestic servants in private homes, or to work in the sex trade. At the moment, when victims are found by the police, there is nowhere that’s specially designed to care for and support them.”

Why Unseen’s project is needed

In 2012, 549 children were identified as trafficked in the UK¹. Studies show at least half of these victims are likely to disappear from social care placements because of the psychological control their traffickers have over them. That’s why Unseen wants to open the UK’s first care and accommodation project for trafficked children, so that professionals who understand the trauma these children have faced can give them back their freedom – and childhood.

The project’s aim

The Children’s Project will care for children 24-hours a day within the setting of a family home, supported by an experienced staff team. Children will be able to feel safe and secure, to have a bedtime story read to them, to go to the park and run around, to laugh and begin to let down their barriers so they can rediscover who they are and what they want from life.

The goal is to ensure police, social care, local authorities and education providers collaborate together to transform the lives of trafficked children. This project was designed in consultation with these key agencies across the South West, and they will refer children to the service. Unseen will also provide training to their public facing staff who may come into contact with potential child victims, helping them to identify and respond to victims effectively.

Appeal for funding

Unseen is running an urgent appeal to raise £100,000 in 100 days! The project will be self-sustaining once it’s up and running, but it desperately needs donations to get the project started so they can begin helping children who deserve a future full of safety, hope and choice.

To donate, go to www.unseenuk.org or call 0303 040 2888.