Children’s commissioner urges Home Secretary to provide greater protection for migrant children

The letter to Suella Braverman, from Dame Rachel de Souza, comes following reports that dozens of under-18s have “vanished” from a Sussex hotel after being “literally picked up from outside the building” by traffickers.

More than half the 136 children reported missing from the hotel in Brighton over the past 18 months remain unaccounted for, according to an investigation by The Observer.

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In her letter to Braverman, de Souza says the report “highlighted, once again, the vulnerability of these children, who are in limbo, with a concerted group of people determined to exploit them”.

She added: “We cannot expect children who have faced the worst trauma to be left to look after themselves as independents – they should be given the care and protection of the state from day one, until they turn 18. The long-term solution to this issue is an increase in high quality placements for all children in care, so that the waiting period in hotels is limited, and eventually eliminated.”

In her most recent letter, the children’s commissioner calls for answers to a series of questions around the safeguarding of vulnerable migrant children housed in Home Office accommodation.

They include:

• How many safeguarding referrals for children in hotels have been made?

• How many of those safeguarding referrals have led to children in hotels being placed on child in need or child protection plans?

• How many serious child safeguarding incident notifications have been made to the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel?

• Whether every hotel has a designated safeguarding lead?

• How many referrals have been made to the relevant Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) about professionals working within the hotels?

• How many children have been reported missing to the police since your response to my letter dated November 19 2022?

• How many independent interviews have been conducted following children returning to the hotels after being missing for a period?

De Souza further recommends that all children who arrive in the UK unaccompanied are given access to an independent advocate.

The letter also references previous discussions with the Home Secretary, in November, during which de Souza raised concerns over 221 children who had been reported missing from Home Office accommodation after arriving at Manston Detention Centre in Kent.

Responding to reports of children trafficked from hotels in Sussex, a Home Office spokesperson said that local authorities have a statutory duty to “protect all children, regardless of where they go missing from”.

He added: “In the concerning occasion when a child goes missing, they work closely with other local agencies, including the police, to urgently establish their whereabouts and ensure they are safe.”