France is failing to protect thousands of children from criminal exploitation, treating them as delinquents rather than victims, the French branch of the UN children’s agency (Unicef) said in a report published Wednesday.
The agency has called for urgent reform to end what it described as a "double punishment" of vulnerable minors caught up in criminal networks. The report, published on Wednesday to mark World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, highlighted the systematic failure to recognise children forced into crime as victims rather than perpetrators.
"Children who are victims of criminal exploitation are insufficiently recognised and protected as victims," Unicef France stated. "They are too often prosecuted and criminally sanctioned for offences committed as a consequence of their exploitation."
Majority from the Africa continent
The report reveals the huge scale of the problem. Data from France's inter-ministerial mission for protecting women against violence and combatting human trafficking (Miprof) shows that more than two-thirds of people involved in criminal exploitation – including prostitution, drug trafficking, pickpocketing, burglary, charity scams and document fraud – are under 18.
The vast majority of identified minors – 92 per cent – are unaccompanied, with 81 per cent originating from Africa, particularly Algeria and Morocco. A further 19 per cent come from Europe, mainly Eastern and Southern European countries including Romania and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Boys and young men account for 89 per cent of victims.
"The people who exploit them use different strategies: addiction, blackmail, threats, psychological pressure, violence," said Corentin Bailleul, Unicef France's advocacy coordinator. "Young people who are exploited are often recruited under false promises or forced to act to survive or repay a debt."
However, on the ground "their exploitation is little recognised, with few exceptions," Bailleul added. He cited the January 2024 trial of the so-called "little thieves of Trocadéro" as a rare example of appropriate justice. In that particular case, six Algerian nationals were convicted for supplying isolated teenagers with psychotropic drugs, "initially free of charge", to control them and force them to steal from tourists. Child protection associations have described the case as exemplary.
French child welfare service accused of allowing kids to fall into prostitution
Legal reform needed
Unicef insists that France's lack of mechanisms for identifying and referring victims of trafficking makes it impossible to assess the true scale of the phenomenon, and that currently available data is therefore underestimated. In 2022, only 352 victims – both adults and children – were identified by NGOs. This figure dropped to 236 in 2023.
By comparison, in the United Kingdom, where such a mechanism is in place, criminal exploitation is currently the most frequently reported form of child exploitation, with 2,891 children identified as victims in 2024.
Unicef argues that international and European law (UN Convention on the rights of the child, 2005 Warsaw Convention, Palermo Protocol against transnational organised crime) requires these children be recognised and protected as trafficking victims, not criminalised for offences they were compelled to commit.
The organisation call for legal reform, urging France to inscribe in its penal code that "a person who is a victim of exploitation cannot be criminally responsible when the offence committed is a consequence of trafficking".
Unicef sounds alarm over child poverty in French overseas departments
Unicef also wants amendments to France's civil code, specifying that "any minor who is exploited, even occasionally, is deemed to be in danger and falls under the protection of the children's judge".
(with newswires)
