Secrets of the Disappearance of Migrant Children From Government Shelters in the UK

In a letter to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, more than a hundred associations have called for a halt to the use of hotels to house migrant children after the authorities admitted that nearly 200 of the 4,600 children who arrived in the UK had gone missing over the past year.

The government’s admission came after The Observer newspaper published a press investigation confirming the disappearance of 136 children out of 600 who were housed in a hotel affiliated with the Ministry of the Interior in the southern city of Brighton. The investigation emphasized the miserable fate that awaits these missing children, who end up in car washes or within drug gangs.

 

The Scandal

In turn, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, acknowledged these dangers and acknowledged a few days ago that some shelters affiliated with the Ministry of the Interior had been exposed to infiltration by human trafficking gangs, an admission that the associations’ letter considered a “scandal” amid the government’s commitment to child protection legislation.

For his part, the Minister of Immigration, Robert Jenrick, downplayed the scandal, saying that he had no evidence that the missing children had been victims of kidnapping, but he promised to follow up on the matter, noting that the authorities had found 200 of the missing children, while a similar number of them are still being missing.

In their letter, the organizations indicated that there is no legal basis for detaining children in hotel shelters affiliated with the Ministry of Interior for a period of up to two years, considering that the government has lost all justifications and that this period of time should not be called a temporary order.

Jenrick acknowledged the significant shortage of alternative accommodation, which makes it difficult to put an end to this situation.

Maddie Harris, the director of the Humans for Rights Foundation, considered that the justification invoked by Jenrick is flimsy, as charities and institutions dealing with refugees have repeatedly offered government assistance in securing places and logistical support.

However, they did not receive any response, stressing the necessity of establishing an independent body to work with the local authorities in order to support these children, as the Ministry of Interior no longer has any credibility, neither in how to receive children, nor in determining their ages or in securing accommodations for them.

 

Grave Violations

This issue cannot be seen as isolated from the issue of asylum in general. Harris says that the current government is not interested in reforming the asylum system nor in protecting refugees.

Previous press investigations warned of sexual abuse incidents against some migrant children in a hotel belonging to the Ministry of the Interior in central London, where children are in small rooms with other adults, and where all means of decent living are lacking in narrow spaces that have no windows and are not equipped with any furniture.

Three months ago, the Ministry of the Interior faced a scandal related to the notorious Manston center in the border area of Kent, where the center, equipped to accommodate a maximum of 1,600 people for a period of time not exceeding 24 hours, was crowded with more than 4,000 immigrants who were crammed in it for more than two months, in light of Outbreaks of communicable diseases such as scarlet fever, diphtheria, and scabies.

The current government is not the only one accused of dealing lightly with the immigrant file, as it was preceded by most of the Conservative Party governments since it came to power 13 years ago, but the current government led by Sunak, and the two previous governments led by Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, were the most “painful” in dealing with this file, according to human rights organizations.

 

Growing Crisis

The disappearance of children is related to another case that was raised a few months ago, when The Guardian newspaper leaked interviews with minor children, who said that border officials of the Ministry of the Interior asked them to lie and to provide false statements about their ages, under the pretext that the ministry settles the affairs of adults much faster than children.

The Human rights associations described that method as “disgusting,” as it would have been completely different if one British child had been subjected to disappearance.

The Guardian reported: “Children seeking asylum in the UK were threatened and subjected to racist abuse by staff at a Home Office-run hotel, a whistleblower has claimed as pressure grows on the government to act over the growing crisis in the system.”

The source, who worked in the Brighton hotel, told the Guardian hotel that in such an environment of “emotional abuse, ” scores of children, who had arrived in the UK without parents or a carer, were driven onto the streets and into the hands of criminals.

Harris told The New Arab that her foundation’s experience in dealing with 512 children who arrived in the UK via Dover shows that the decision about their age was made within a few hours by border officials, and that, according to the interviews it conducted with the children, they were persuaded or forced to claim that they are adults. Then they will be transferred to hotel shelters for adults.

Kidnapping is not the most accurate expression to describe the disappearance of these children, according to Harris. After they came from Albania, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, or Iran through smuggling gangs, it is likely that they will be exposed to extortion at the hands of the smugglers themselves, especially since they lack care and protection.

The government does not provide the necessary funds to support them and assumes that their problems are solved once they reach its shores. Harris asks: “What if the child owes money to the smuggler? What if the children feel afraid of being in hotels full of adults, or are harassed or assaulted? They will definitely run away.”