Church leaders: Let the refugee children in now
CHILD refugees must be brought to Britain urgently, religious leaders have said.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who is now Lord Williams of Oystermouth, along with Rabbi Laura JannerKlausner and Peter Hill, the Bishop of Barking, are among 30 leaders to warn ministers that lone child refugees cannot be allowed to live in limbo.
On Monday, No 10 suggested the refugees may be brought to Britain ‘by the end of the year’, but the religious leaders said the situation was ‘urgent’.
In a letter to The Times, they said campaigners had identified 157 youngsters in Calais ‘with family in Britain who will spend tonight in the mud and danger of “The Jungle”.’
Conditions in Greece, where thousands more are stranded, were also ‘appalling with widespread reports of children living destitute in the street’. The letter added: ‘The children should be safe, warm and in school.
‘We urge the Prime Minister to ensure that all the children in Calais with valid legal claims and the first 300 identified as most at risk in Greece and Italy, are brought to Britain by the start of the next school year.’
The letter follows the Daily Mail’s call to David Cameron to show compassion towards the youngsters, some of whom are as young as five.
The leaders praised the Government’s ‘ bold and decent’ U-turn decision to allow in unaccompanied children in camps on the Continent. But they wrote: ‘We must not forget the urgency of the situation.’
Immigration minister James Brokenshire said Downing Street’s statement on Monday did not necessarily mean it would be Christmas before the children arrived, but stressed that the Government was obliged to consult with councils before acting. Yvette Cooper, Labour’s refugee taskforce chairman, called on the Government to accept 300 children before the beginning of the school year in September.
She accused No 10 of dragging its feet and said processes should already be in place for children who have family in the UK to be reunited with them.
‘Seven months may be a fast time for a bureaucrat – it is a very long, long time for a child,’ she said. Only three or four reunification cases were being dealt with every week when more than 100 are pending, she said.
‘To have only the first children by the end of the year is simply not enough,’ she added.
‘There are 14-year- olds who want to be surgeons who have been out of school for two years.
‘There are teenage boys who have been abused, who are at risk of being abused again, there are teenage girls who cannot escape from forced marriages because there isn’t the support for them to do so.’
Ministers last week agreed to back a demand from Labour peer and Holocaust survivor Lord Dubs to take in an unspecified number of lone child refugees.