For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Leading charities have called for an independent inquiry into how more than 200 asylum-seeking children have gone “missing” from Home Office hotels, describing the situation as “a child protection scandal”.
In a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak signed by more than 100 organisations, the charities warned that the children – many of whom had been living in southern seaside towns – were at risk of exploitation.
Their letter urges him to end the practice of housing young refugees who have been separated from their families in Home Office hotels, and instead place them with specialist local authority teams who can protect them.
This is a child protection scandal that councils, the police and ministers must urgently address to ensure every single separated child matters and is kept safe
Enver Solomon, Refugee Council
Co-ordinated by ECPAT UK and the Refugee Council, the open letter has been signed by charities including the NSPCC, Barnardo’s, Action for Children, Coram, The Children’s Society and National Children’s Bureau.
Recommended
- Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide
- Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east – follow live
The letter condemns the Government’s “reported failures to protect vulnerable children from harm”, and highlights how housing young refugees in hotels was intended to be used only as a short-term emergency option.
The letter states: “There is no legal basis for placing children in Home Office hotel accommodation, and almost two years into the operation of the scheme – which is both unlawful and harmful – it is no longer possible to justify the use of hotels as being ‘temporary’.
“It is a significant departure from the Children Act 1989 and established standards.”
We need an urgent commitment to end this practice immediately and to ensure that separated children are cared for and protected as all other children within our legal and well-established child welfare framework
Patricia Durr, ECPAT UK
The charities add that the Home Office has “repeatedly failed” to commit to an end date for the scheme.
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, described the loss of dozens of refugees as “a child protection scandal”.
He said: “We know from our work that children who have experienced unimaginable horror and upheaval coming to our country in search of safety are highly traumatised and vulnerable.
“The Government has a very clear legal duty to protect them but is failing to do so with the equivalent of several classrooms of children seemingly having disappeared into the clutches of those who will exploit and abuse them.
Rather than setting up separate provision, the Government must provide local authorities with sufficient funds to properly fulfil their legal duties to children
Patricia Durr, ECPAT UK
“This is a child protection scandal that councils, the police and ministers must urgently address to ensure every single separated child matters and is kept safe.”
Patricia Durr, chief executive of ECPAT UK, called for “an urgent commitment to end this practice immediately”.
She said: “Despite evidence of the risks and numerous representations, the Government has ignored the warnings and is yet to commit to an exit strategy, seeming to prefer to entrench this discriminatory approach to some of the most vulnerable children with the greatest need of protection and care.
“We need an urgent commitment to end this practice immediately and to ensure that separated children are cared for and protected as all other children within our legal and well-established child welfare framework.
“Rather than setting up separate provision, the Government must provide local authorities with sufficient funds to properly fulfil their legal duties to children.”
Recommended
- The full exchange: Stephen Flynn confronts Rishi Sunak over Tory sleaze
- Broadband firms urged to axe mid-contract exit fees as prices rise
- ‘Founding spirit’ of Notting Hill Carnival among new blue plaque names in London
Conservative frontbencher Lord Murray of Blidworth confirmed on Tuesday that 200 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children remained missing after initially being accommodated in hotels since July 2021.
He said that 88% (176) were Albanian nationals.
✕
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
SubscribeAlready subscribed? Log in
Popular videos
{{/link}}