The number of trafficked and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children going missing from local authority care is a ‘national disgrace,' two charities have warned today.

A new report from ECPAT UK and Missing People found more than a quarter of all trafficked children and more than 500 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children went missing at least once in the year leading up to September 2015.

The report – entitled Heading back to harm: A study on trafficked and unaccompanied children going missing from care in the UK – also warned that many local authorities were failing to collect consistent data on these children, leaving them vulnerable to re-trafficking and abuse.

Chloe Setter, head of advocacy, policy & campaigns at ECPAT UK, said: ‘For too long, children who are at risk of exploitation or who have been trafficked have gone missing from care – sometimes repeatedly, sometimes forever. 

‘It is a national disgrace that this problem has remained neglected and these children rendered invisible by poor data collection and national coordination.

‘Heading back to harm has attempted to shine a light on this problem and, in doing so, has unearthed an alarming trend of our most vulnerable children disappearing, hundreds of them never to be found. 

‘We must not accept this as a reality any longer.'

The charities have called for reforms to the child protection system, including the introduction of a national independent child trafficking advocates scheme and better data recording by councils.