Sexually exploited and trafficked young people

The UK is recognised as a significant transit and destination country for trafficked children and young people. Sexual exploitation and trafficking puts young people at risk and damages their health, safety and wellbeing; this pushes vulnerable young people further into poverty.

Aim of the programme

We aim to fund projects that will reduce harm to young people aged 11-25 through sexual exploitation and/or trafficking

We want to fund a wide variety of work including direct services for young people which meet both immediate and longer term needs, especially in areas where there are no services or which are aimed at young people who are poorly served (e.g. young men, minority ethnic groups). We will also fund prevention work, training for workers and professionals, and work that raises awareness of the issues surrounding sexual exploited and trafficked young people.

Outcomes

Your work will need to deliver one or more of the following outcomes:

• Fewer young people will be sexually exploited or trafficked
• More sexually exploited and/or trafficked young people and those at risk will know their rights, understand their situation and/or have access to the help and support they need
• More sexually exploited and/or trafficked young people will have increased choice to make positive decisions about their futures.

Other important information

• We welcome applications from organisations that have been set up to specifically support sexually exploited young people aged 11-25 and those at risk; we also welcome applications from organisations with a wider young people’s brief but who want to target this group.
• We will support organisations working around sexual exploitation or trafficking who want to address young people’s needs; we will also support projects in other fields, for example homelessness agencies or young people in the care of local authority, who have contact with this vulnerable group of young people.
• We recognise that this remains a growing field of work, so if you have an innovative project that you feel addresses our overall aim, please contact us.

You can apply for all or some of your project costs, but we encourage you to get some of your funding from other sources if you can. We will not generally fund the full cost of applications made by charities with an annual income over £10 million. Our grants usually vary between £25,000 and £40,000 per year for a maximum of three years, and rarely exceed this upper limit.

If your work is national or provides a model that could be replicated, we may be able to fund at a higher level. Please call us to discuss this before you submit an application.

You should also read our UK Grants Strategy

This programme is open for on-line applications from 13th August until midday on 19th October 2012.