Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children are being preyed upon by traffickers and people smugglers, according to the House of Lords EU home affairs subcommittee report. More than 10,000 children are estimated to have gone missing.
Refugee resettlement: are we doing enough?
PSE’s Rosemary Collins analyses the recent Home Affairs Select Committee report into the UK’s response to the migration crisis, and whether the public sector is doing enough to support Syrian refugees.
Read in full at source: Refugee resettlement: are we doing enough?
Report of the Select Committee
Key findings include:
Thousands of those in the Calais Jungle are Syrians, Eritreans, Sudanese, Iranians and Iraqis, including many children, many of whom have family members in the UK or other ties to this country. It is clear that many people in these camps are entitled to humanitarian protection or refugee status, and that their claims should be processed in the UK. Much more could and should be done through family reunion and accepting unaccompanied children, including increased use of safe and legal migration routes.
Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP, Chair of the Committee, said:
“Europe’s efforts to address this ‘colossal’ refugee crisis has been lamentable. The atrocious conditions in migrant camps within and on the borders of the richest countries on earth is a source of shame. It is horrifying that large numbers of the 85,000 unaccompanied children already in the EU have gone missing shortly after arrival, facing abuse and exploitation. They have become the EUs “disappeared ones”. It is unacceptable that the 157 unaccompanied children in Calais with family in the UK have still not arrived here.
Read the Select Committee: Europe-wide failure to anticipate and tackle “colossal” migration crisis
The Secret of War Crime
‘First they shot her husband.
Then the soldiers killed her two sons, ages 5 and 7. When the uniformed men yanked her daughter from her hands next, Mary didn’t think it could get any worse’.
Read ‘The Secret of War Crime’ by Aryn Baker:
Read at source in TIME: The Secret of War Crime – The most shameful consequence of war crime comes out
Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children in England
Key findings from research ‘Mapping unaccompanied asylum seeking children in England’ by Humphris, R. and Sigona, N. (2016):
- Increasingly children are accommodated outside the local authority with statutory responsibility to support them.
- Receiving local authorities are rarely informed of these transfers and keep no record of unaccompanied minors placed from other LAs.
- Figures of missing children from Local Authorities do not match the one provided by the Home Office.
- Definitions of ‘missing’ children vary considerably across England casting doubt on the comparability of data across local authorities.
- Data on care leavers are extremely patchy and inconsistent across Local Authorities. As a result, little is known about what happens to young people after they reach 18 years old.
Read at source: ‘Mapping unaccompanied asylum seeking children in England’
More about the Becoming Adult project can be found: here
Home Office and Department for Education Protocols & Statutory Guidance
- The Home Office and Department for Education have (1 July) launched a new voluntary transfer arrangement between local authorities for the care of unaccompanied children who arrive in the UK and claim asylum: Interim national transfer protocol for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children
- Interim national transfer procedure on transferring unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC): Interim national transfer scheme
- This guidance sets out the steps local authorities should take to plan for the provision of support for looked-after children who are unaccompanied asylum seeking children and child victims of trafficking: Statutory guidance: Care of unaccompanied and trafficked children
- For detailed guidance on how to identify and protect trafficked children before they become looked after, read ‘Safeguarding children who may have been trafficked’.
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