More then 2,000 trafficked children and lone child asylum seekers missing from UK councils’ care | Social care

More than 2,000 children who were victims of trafficking or came to the UK simply to seek asylum were left without the care of social services last year, according to freedom of information data shared with the Guardian.

The authors of the report, Until the damage is doneIt has submitted FoI requests to the children’s services departments of councils in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland seeking information about trafficked children and people who came to the UK alone, claimed asylum and went missing after being taken into care.

Data from 135 local authorities found that of 2,335 children identified or suspected of being trafficked, 864 (37%) were reported missing.

A total of 141 local authorities responded to questions about single asylum-seeking children in their care (11,999 children). Of these, 1,501 (13%) were reported missing.

Report released by aid agencies on Monday ECPAT UK (Every Child is Protected Against Trafficking) and Missing Personswarns that these groups are at “very high risk” of missing out on care.

Some of the children trafficked in the UK are British citizens, while others come from abroad. They have most likely been subjected to sexual abuse or criminal exploitation, for example by gangs within the county borders.

Local authorities have a legal duty to protect and support trafficked and unaccompanied children within child protection frameworks. However, there is no published central government data on the subject.

The new report warns that factors such as unsafe immigration status can increase young people’s risk of further harm and put them at serious risk of re-trafficking and re-exploitation.

It says there is an “ongoing and significant failure” in safeguarding and is calling on local authorities and police to ensure good practice is followed.

The authors also call on the Ministry of Education to ensure that all trafficked and unaccompanied children have access to appropriate accommodation that will protect them from being exploited again.

Since September 2021, local authorities must ensure that all looked after children under the age of 16 are placed in care-providing settings. However, 16 and 17 year olds can still be accommodated in so-called “supported accommodation” accommodation that does not provide daily care.

In exceptional cases, these older children may be placed in hostels, caravans, tents, boats, or shared housing with unrelated adults.

Patricia Durr, chief executive of ECPAT UK, said: “This report underlines the risk faced by trafficked and unaccompanied children. It remains difficult to understand why these children continue to fail. They are continually let down by the systems intended to support them, while being punished by policies that worsen the problem and used by a political narrative aimed at sowing division.”

Jane Hunter, head of research and impact at Missing People, said: “Every child deserves to feel safe and protected, but kidnapped and unaccompanied children are repeatedly failed by the systems designed to protect them.”

A government spokesman said: “This government has inherited a children’s social care system that has failed to meet the needs of the country’s most vulnerable children. “Our landmark child welfare and schools bill is the biggest overhaul of children’s social care in a generation and delivers on our mission to break the link between young people’s backgrounds and future attainment and ensure every child in our country, including those in care, has the opportunity to succeed.

“This includes improving the availability of care placements, better information sharing, requiring the establishment of multi-agency child protection teams in all areas and introducing a new duty on partners to automatically include education and childcare settings in safeguarding arrangements to help prevent children from falling into vulnerability.”