UN raises alarm over missing refugee children in Britain

New government told to take 'all measures necessary' to protect lone youngsters from trafficking

A member of the UK’s Board Force team assists a young girl who had arrived in Dover, southern England, by boat. Getty Images

UN inspectors have raised the alarm over refugee children in Britain who went missing from asylum hotels and may have fallen prey to people smugglers.

Britain's new Labour government has been told to take "all measures necessary" to protect the unaccompanied youngsters from trafficking.

Scores of children have vanished after crossing the English Channel in small boats and being put up in hotels to cover accommodation shortages.

The National revealed last year that people-trafficking gangs have used mobile phone trackers to find refugees before luring them away for work.

Youngsters have been found acting as spotters for counterfeiting and drug gangs, with children as young as 11 unaccounted for.

Officials sought to reassure an 18-member UN human rights panel that they are taking action by putting new arrivals in local authority care instead of hotels.

"We're concerned about any child who went missing whilst accommodated in hotels and continue working across agencies to locate them," said Home Office official Rebecca Nugent during a grilling in Geneva.

But Gun Kut, a Turkish diplomat who led the UN review of Britain's race and equalities record, said the "seriousness of the situation" required a warning on the UK's periodic report card.

The panel is "concerned about reports of the disappearance of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children whilst accommodated in hotels that were operated by [the UK]", says the 16-page report made public on Friday.

It says Britain should "adopt all measures necessary to ensure that all unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who have gone missing are accommodated only in places covered by [the UK's] child protection system and effectively protect them against trafficking."

'Serious situation'

UK officials have "reassured us that they are taking care of the situation", Mr Kut said. "In certain areas, the committee is satisfied, but yet it wants to make sure that further positive action is followed up."

The Home Office disclosed to The National last year that 144 children were still missing out of at least 440 who had disappeared from hotels.

One of them, a 12-year-old lone refugee, has been missing for more than a year in what was condemned as a child protection scandal.

The routine use of hotels to house lone refugee children was later ruled unlawful after a legal challenge by the Every Child Protected Against Trafficking charity.

Lawyers described children being forced into vehicles at knifepoint or threatened over debts owed by their families in their home countries.

The largest groups of children housed in hotels came from Afghanistan and Iran, but a watchdog said Albanian boys were the most prone to disappearance.

The UN rights panel also warned that migrants who faced deportation to Rwanda under a now-scrapped scheme still have an uncertain fate.

It highlighted the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers as an area of "particular importance" along with policing and criminal justice.

English Channel small boat crossing - in pictures

Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the Rwanda scheme "unworkable" and has ruled out leaving the European Convention on Human Rights to allow for deportations.

However, Labour is still under pressure to secure Britain's borders, with 5,000 people having crossed the Channel on small boats since the election on July 4.

Asylum hotels and immigration centres were a target of far-right violence during summer riots sparked by the killing of three children near Liverpool.

The UN panel is "particularly concerned about recurring racist acts and violence against ethnic and ethno-religious minorities, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers", said Mr Kut.

It "emphasised the need for thorough investigations and strict penalties for racist hate crimes and effective remedies for the victims and their families", he said.