Whistleblowers reveal scope of child trafficking among migrants in UK
Date
1/22/2023 7:51:37 AM
(MENAFN) According to a Saturday investigation by The Guardian, the United Kingdom Home Office ignored the disappearance of scores of unaccompanied immigrant children from a Sussex hotel it uses as a children's home.
Based on the news source, out of the 600 unaccompanied youngsters who have checked into the Home Office's hotel in Brighton over the past 18 months, 136 have been reported missing and 79 of them are still missing. The alleged kidnappings, according to a whistleblower for Home Office security contractor Mitie, are brazen, regular, and not only at the Brighton site.
The security officer told The Guardian that “Children are literally being picked up from outside the building, disappearing and not being found," and that "traffickers" could be to blame. According to reports, a comparable institution in Hythe, Kent, lost 10 percent of its juvenile inmates each week.
The location was known to be problematic - a "hotspot of exploitation," in the words of another source from child protection services - due to the operation of county lines gangs in the area, and police had been warning the Home Office for more than a year that criminal networks would likely target the young asylum seekers being housed in the hotel.
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