MPs ‘failing to honour vow on child refugees’
THOUSANDS of lone child refugees are left at the mercy of people smugglers because of the UK’s ‘deplorable’ response to their pleas for help, a damning report has found.
Britain is failing them by refusing to take its fair share and treating them like ‘somebody else’s problem’, said the Lords EU committee.
It said vulnerable children were often not believed about their age and that authorities around Europe were trying to ‘pass the parcel’ by putting them off applying for asylum.
The young migrants – whose plight has been highlighted by the Mail – were then preyed on by human traffickers, who claim they can reach their destination country more quickly by going through them.
Desperate children often do not trust the authorities and give in to this pressure.
In one harrowing example, a 15year-old Afghan, known only as Masud, made his way to Sweden before ending up in Calais. He died in a lorry trying to reach the UK in December, having lost hope his claim to join his sister would ever be heard.
At least 10,000 lone under-18s are missing in Europe where nearly 90,000 minors sought refuge in 2015. That was almost four times 2014’s total of 23,000. Last year in the UK there were 3,043 applications from lone children seeking asylum, a jump of 56 per cent on 2014.
The Mail, with charities such as Save the Children and the former child refugee Labour peer Lord Dubs, urged ministers to do more to help those languishing in European camps.
As Prime Minister, David Cameron insisted that taking children from EU camps could act as an incentive for more to be sent to the continent.
But after a defeat in the Lords and pressure from the Mail, Mr Cameron agreed to start taking an unspecified number of lone child refugees if they had made it to Europe before March 30.
Talks are being held with councils about resettling them as work continues to identify those with links to Britain.
Baroness Prashar, chairman of the Lords EU committee, said: ‘The refugee crisis is the greatest humanitarian challenge the EU has faced. At the sharp end are unaccompanied migrant children, who are being failed across the board. We found that these children face suspicion on arrival.
‘They are seen as “somebody else’s problem” and the conditions they live in were described to us as deplorable and squalid.
‘We found a clear failure among EU countries, including the UK, to shoulder their fair share of the burden.
‘We deeply regret the UK Government’s reluctance to relocate migrant children, in particular those living in terrible conditions in the camps near the Channel ports.’ The committee heard a ‘wealth of evidence’ about the prevailing culture of disbelief, ‘most of it relating to the UK’.
Some nations use bone density scans or dental records to verify age but in Britain, social workers and immigration staff conducted interviews with those saying they were minors.
UK authorities had wrongly classified at least 127 minors as adults in UK detention in the five years to June 2015.
Some children as young as 14 have been assessed as adults, with immigration officers making incorrect decisions based on the person’s appearance.
Children were held in detention centres for months in conditions they described as ‘distressing’ and ‘scary’.
Many were given only temporary leave to remain and had to reapply for asylum at 17.
Some 2,748 had been returned to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria in the past nine years.
The Home Office said a new law has allowed more than 20 young migrants to be accepted, most of whom have arrived, while talks with the UN, Italy, France and Greece aim to speed up helping children to the UK.
The Mail’s always been robust on migration. But we must give these lost children sanctuary ‘Living conditions were deplorable’ From the Mail, April 28