Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much his Department spent from the public purse on preventing the trafficking of adolescent girls in humanitarian crises in (a) 2016-17, (b) 2017-18 and (c) 2018-19.

Since 2017 the Government has more than doubled UK aid spending to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking – committing just over £200 million to date.  This includes work to prevent the trafficking of adolescent girls.

We do not have figures specifically for humanitarian crises. However, examples of our current work to protect vulnerable children in protracted crises include:

• a £10 million Children on the Move Programme (in partnership with UNICEF) over the period 2017-2020 to protect up to 400,000 children at risk of violence and slavery in the Horn of Africa; and
• a £12 million UK Aid Connect Programme over the period 2018-2022 to address child labour in fragile and conflict affected states in Africa (such as the DRC).

Full details of this work can be found at https://devtracker.dfid.gov.uk.