Child refugees need more protection from ministers

We are told about extreme numbers of “migrants invading our shores” and how we must find better ways to defend our borders but what is rarely highlighted is the children involved, who very much need our protection.

According to Home Office data, the number of applications from unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in 2021 was 4,382. This was 600 higher than in 2019, but certainly not the thousands more the government implies. Overwhelmingly, these children are fleeing from places of conflict like Iran, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. They have been separated from their families and loved ones. Some will have been trafficked here and witnessed extremely traumatic events or experienced abuse in their home country or on the perilous journey to get here. They deserve to be helped, supported and nurtured like every child in this country.

Children who arrive in the UK are at significant risk of going missing, often shortly after they arrive. This is a growing issue with local authorities telling our Prevention Programme as many as 50 per cent of separated children in their care are going missing. Many go missing because they are still under the control of traffickers who brought them here so it’s vital we work to build a rapport with these children immediately with a robust child protection response.

Yet many of these children are disbelieved, wrongly assessed as adults and placed in inappropriate accommodation, at significant risk. We have also been shocked at the government putting hundreds of unaccompanied children alone in hotels. As a recent inspectorate report highlighted, some as young as 10 have been housed in dangerously unsafe conditions by the Home Office where hotel staff were found to be without proper checks and without safeguards to protect children from being trafficked, placing them at significant risk. It should come as no surprise that there have been 391 missing episodes of these children between July 2021 and October 2022 and currently 222 children placed in hotels are missing. A significant proportion of migrant children who go missing are being trafficked into abuse and exploitation and we often never see these children again.

The asylum system is seriously flawed. Amid the rhetoric and angst, the government is severely failing children and not doing enough to protect them from danger.

When we ask young people who have experienced the system how they would begin to make it better, they say providing each separated child with a guardian is key. Someone who would look out for their interests, ensure they understand what they’re going through, and safeguard their mental health. Society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable: we can and must do better, starting with children.

• Mark Russell is chief executive of The Children’s Society