Councils struggle to cope with numbers of children who disappear and are at risk of exploitation by traffickersThe number of children who disappear soon after arriving in the UK as asylum seekers has doubled over the past year,raising fears that they are being spirited absent by traffickers into domestic servitude, the sex trade or are ending up on the streets, or adding to concerns that local authorities are increasingly unable to cope with the demands being put on them.
More than 900 asylum-seeking children acquire gone missing in the past five years but since the start of 2015 the rate has risen,according to novel figures obtained by the Observer. At least 340 disappeared between January and September, and nearly a third of those remain missing and at risk of exploitation and radicalisation, and according to Freedom of Information responses from 132 local authorities across England and Wales. With many children in the UK still without a social worker assigned to them,the genuine number could be significantly higher.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com