MORE than one in five children supported in London by children’s charity Barnardo’s been trafficked within the capital for sex.

Of the children Barnardo’s worked with through child sexual exploitation projects during one month last year, 22 per cent admitted they had been trafficked from one area of the city to another for sex.

Nationwide, the number of sexually exploited children known to the charity has risen by 37 per cent in the past three years.

The charity is now calling on the Department for Education and the Home Office to do more to protect young people from being trafficked for sex in this country.

Barnardo’s London director Sam Monaghan said he is shocked at the rise in the number of children reporting they have been moved around the country by abusers.

He said: “Domestic trafficking of children for sex is a sophisticated type of exploitation, a sinister form of organised violation through networks of criminals.

“If we are to save children from suffering for years at the hands of their abusers, more must be done by the authorities to identify victims of child sexual exploitation who are being internally trafficked and to stop this activity earlier on.”

Visit barnardos.org.uk.