After arriving unaccompanied in the U.K. and being placed in asylum hotels hundreds of refugee children have vanished. Many are suspected of falling prey to human traffickers while waiting for their asylum claims to be processed. U.N. inspectors are now raising the alarm and telling the new Labour government to take “all measures necessary” to protect the unaccompanied children from trafficking The National reports. 

“Seriousness of the situation” requires a warning 

In the U.K. asylum hotels are used to temporarily house refugees while they wait for their claims to be processed. Until a recent legal challenge, lone refugee children were being housed in asylum hotels and some simply disappeared. It is suspected that they may have fallen prey to human traffickers. The Home Office shared that at least 440 children had disappeared. As of last year 144 children were still missing. In May this year a scandal revealed that one 12-year-old has been missing for over a year.  

A U.N. report published after the review of the U.K.’s race and equalities record said: 

“(The U.K. must) …ensure that all unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who have gone missing are accommodated only in places covered by child protection system and effectively protect them against trafficking.“ 

It was revealed last year that traffickers are tracking mobile phones to find the lone children. They then lure them away to work using compulsion and pressure, with children as young as 11 going unaccounted for. Lawyers working on these types of cases recounted children being forced into vehicles at knifepoint. Some were threatened over debts owed by their families in their home countries. They are then made to act as drug runners, or county lines, and spotters for various types of gang-related criminal activity. 

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