Asylum seeker children exploited
Many disappear into ‘county lines’ drug gangs soon after they arrive in city
ASYLUM seeker children are going missing after being recruited by crime bosses in Birmingham and the West Midlands.
Some are vanishing after being lured to join ‘county lines’ drugs gangs within days of arriving in the UK.
Last year 1,428 children under the age of 17 went missing in the West Midlands – some of them several times. But 22 of them have still not been traced.
In all, West Midlands Police had to deal with 5,469 reports, up by more than 1,500 on the year before.
Inspector Phil Poole, from the force’s Locate team, said the rise in total cases had been mainly caused by children seeking asylum from countries such as Vietnam, Afghanistan and Albania.
“The children come to the UK seeking asylum and their details are registered with social services,” he said. “But some of them fall prey to crime gangs shortly after coming here.
“They are then very difficult to locate. Some of these children fall into slavery and are trafficked.
“We also get quite a few cases of adults seeking asylum who are posing as children. It can be very difficult to verify their age.
“They get registered with the relevant authorities and then they simply disappear.”
Youngsters are lured into county lines gangs with promises of cash, phones, drugs and designer clothing, then forced to push heroin, cocaine and cannabis in rural towns. More of the gangs are operating out of Birmingham, and children as young as nine are being recruited.
County lines gangs are so-called because a single telephone number is used to order drugs, operated from outside the area, across county lines.
“There is a big problem with children being recruited by county lines gangs,” said Inspector Poole. “Children from Birmingham and the wider West Midlands are being recruited by gangs to sell drugs in places as far afield as Scotland, Avon and Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, Wales, Yorkshire and Tyne and Wear.
“We have had lots of success stories where we have found young victims working for these gangs and we have brought them home to their families.
“But there are still many children out there who are being recruited by these gangs. They go and live in towns far away from home. It is a very solitary existence for them.
“We work closely with the British Transport Police, rail companies and car hire companies to try to trace these young people.
“We have around 70 staff working in the Locate team and work with a number of different agencies, including social services and children’s charities, to bring these missing children home.”
Just last month West Midlands Police busted 20 county lines drug networks and plucked more than 80 children from the clutches of dealers. The force made nearly 200 arrests during the period.
In April alone, 12 illegal networks were taken down and 22 people were taken into custody. And since November the force has made 88 ‘safeguarding interventions’ to protect identified victims. Out of those, no fewer than 82 were children.