Let’s put our minds to solving refugee crisis

From an immigration perspective, children are seen as addendums to their parents, however many do not have parents to be connected to. All too often, the plight of unaccompanied children is only covered in the media when tragedy strikes and lives are lost in their attempt to get to the UK.

Today there are more child refugees in Europe than at any point since World War Two; many of these children are unaccompanied. Some have been sent by their parents in the hope of a better life away from conflicts in their home countries, while others have been separated from their parents by smugglers or in the chaos of fleeing for safety.

Unaware of their rights and with little if any access to legal support they move through Europe in search of family members – and in desperate times often turn to smugglers for help only then to be exploited.

Now, the government has dropped the “Dubs amendment” which currently protects some of the most vulnerable children in the world. The amendment made to the Immigration Act in 2016 was expected to see up to 3,000 lone refugee children come to Britain. This sadly did not transpire with lack of accommodation provided by local authorities being cited as a reason for this.

I have worked in the immigration system and believe there is a deeper question that we must ask ourselves about how we help migrant children: what is it that we have set our minds to do?

It seems to me that when we “put our minds to it” overall, we are successful and achieve our aims. It may seem a strange comparison, but the British government managed to repatriate more than 150,000 holidaymakers when travel operator Thomas Cook collapsed. The problem was defined, civil servants set their minds to doing it and then made it happen. Yet as few as 480 children were given sanctuary through the Dubs agreement.

As a society we need to set our minds to protect these children by ensuring our country has a resettlement scheme beyond Brexit. The United Nations Refugee Agency recommends that Britain takes 1,000 at-risk child refugees a year. This would mean that each local authority would need to care for just three child refugees a year. If we put our minds to it, this would be simple.

Just over 80 years ago, as a refugee crisis unfolded in Europe, the UK saved 10,000 children from certain death when the Kindertransport was arranged. One of those refugee children was Alf Dubs. He became a Labour MP and later a member of the House of Lords, from which he wrote the Dubs amendment. With the current refugee crisis showing no signs of abating, we need similar swift action to save today’s child refugees.

• Nathan Ward is vicar of St Margaret’s Church, Rainham, and former youth custody deputy director