ABSTRACT
By the end of 2015, 65.3 million people were known to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to have experienced forcible displacement as a result of persecution, conflict, generalised violence or human rights violations (UNHCR, 2016). This figure included internally displaced persons (IDPs) remaining in their countries of origin, refugees and asylum seekers who had crossed borders to seek protection and stateless persons not considered nationals of any state in the world. Detailed demographic information is not available for the entirety of these populations but it is estimated that around half are female with the proportion of children, under the age of 18 years, estimated to be 51% (UNHCR, 2016). This figure includes the more than one million people who crossed the Mediterranean Sea to European countries during 2015 to seek refuge, with thousands dying en route (Crawley et al., 2016). Numerous reports from governmental and non-governmental organisations working with children have outlined how children are subject to sexual exploitation, 1 at risk of going missing 2 from European refugee camps and are experiencing an increased vulnerability to trafficking. 3
