CNN
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Hundreds of child asylum seekers have gone missing for the reason that British government began housing minors in motels as a result of a pressure on the nation’s asylum lodging system, British Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick informed lawmakers in parliament on Tuesday, amid requires an investigation into the matter.
Jenrick mentioned Tuesday that round 200 kids have gone missing since July 2021. “Out of the 4,600 unaccompanied children that have been accommodated in hotels since July 2021, there have been 440 missing occurrences and 200 children still remain missing,” he mentioned.
Approximately 13 of the 200 missing kids are beneath the age of 16, and one is feminine in keeping with government knowledge. The majority of the missing, 88%, are Albanian nationals, and the remaining 12% are from Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Vietnam, Pakistan and Turkey.
Jenrick blamed the issue on a rise in migrant boat crossings by the English Channel to the United Kingdom which left the government “no alternative” than to make use of “specialist hotels” to accommodate minors as of July 2021.
Although the contracted use of motels was envisioned as a short lived answer, there have been nonetheless 4 in operation as of October with over 200 rooms designated to child migrants, in keeping with a report from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration.
British charities and migrant rights teams have lengthy complained in regards to the dangerous situations in the nation’s overwhelmed and underfunded asylum system.
The quantity of asylum claims processed in the UK has collapsed in current years, leaving individuals in limbo for months and years – trapped in processing services or non permanent motels and unable to work – and fueling an intractable debate about Britain’s borders.
The missing migrant kids was first reported in British media on Saturday, when the newspaper The Observer reported that “dozens” of asylum-seeking kids had been kidnapped by “gangs” from a resort run by the UK Home Office in Brighton, southern England.
Calls have since been mounting for an pressing investigation into the matter, with the the opposition Labour Party, human rights group the Refugee Council, in addition to native authorities demanding pressing motion.
The Home Office has referred to as these experiences unfaithful and in a press release to CNN a Home Office spokesperson mentioned: “The wellbeing of children in our care is an absolute priority.”
The spokesperson added that they’d “robust safeguarding procedures” in place and ” when a child goes missing, native authorities work carefully with businesses, together with the police, to urgently set up their whereabouts.”
While the British government is with out the facility to detain unaccompanied minors, who’re free to depart the motels, Jenrick defended the UK Home Office’s safeguarding practices saying that information are saved and monitored of kids leaving and returning to the motels and that help employees are readily available to accompany kids off web site on actions and social excursions.
“Many of those who have gone missing are subsequently traced and located,” Jenrick informed parliament.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, from the opposition Labour Party, blamed human traffickers in her response to parliament saying “children are literally being picked up from outside the building, disappearing and not being found. They are being taken from the street by traffickers.”
Cooper mentioned “urgent and serious action” is required to crack down on gangs to maintain kids and younger individuals protected.
“We know from Greater Manchester Police, they’ve warned asylum hotels and children’s homes are being targeted by organised criminals. And in this case, there is a pattern here that gangs know where to come to get the children, often likely because they trafficked them here in the first place,” she added. “There is a criminal network involved. The government is completely failing to stop them.”
On Monday, UK charity Refugee Action mentioned that it’s “scandalous that children who have come to this country to ask for safety are being put in harm’s way. Ultimate responsibility lies with the Home Secretary, and her decision to run an asylum system based not on compassion, but hostility,” they added.
UK charity the Refugee Council tweeted that they’re “deeply concerned by the practice of placing separated children in Home Office accommodation, outside of legal provisions, putting them at risk of harm with over 200 of them having gone missing.”