A source at the Home Office said the new law recognised that children could not consent to their own exploitation, but the law would not override the age of criminal responsibility, and the police and Crown Prosecution Service would decide if charges were brought against children.
The new law, which campaigners have long called for, will make it a specific offence in England and Wales to use a child to commit criminal activity, while new child criminal exploitation prevention orders will also restrict criminals’ ability to operate, said the home secretary, Yvette Cooper.
“The ruthless criminal exploitation of vulnerable children has been a brutal and lucrative business model for organised criminals for too long,” said the former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield, who now chairs the Centre for Young Lives.
Mark Russell, the chief executive at The Children’s Society, said the standalone crime would finally shift the focus on to perpetrators, not victims, and help protect the 14,500 children identified as being at risk of criminal exploitation last year.
Long-overdue laws to protect children forced into selling drugs across county lines will save lives and block a “brutal and lucrative criminal business”, the former children’s commissioner has said.
.jpg?trim=204,0,0,0&quality=75&auto=webp&width=1000)
