Hundreds of asylum seeking children living under the care of the UK Home Office in child hotels have gone missing, according to a new publication from UCL researchers and ECPAT UK. From 2021 to 2024, 440 children went missing, with 118 still missing as of March 2024.
A former Home Office hotel worker said he was aware of three trafficking incidents. Traffickers operate via fake accounts on sites like Facebook to lure the children outside of the Home Office’s care, writing predatory messages such as ‘we are sending a friend’ – the children would then leave the hotel to meet the trafficker.
In the report, researchers interviewed the young people as well as professionals tasked with their care. The findings concluded that the system of Home Office hotels ‘provides an easy target for traffickers seeking to find and exploit these children, particularly for lone, unaccompanied youth.’
Additionally, the report released evidence from professional interviewees that some asylum-seeking children were incorrectly assessed as adults, and placed into adult hotels. Concerns about this have previously been reported in the Justice Gap as it leaves children vulnerable to abuse, harassment, and exploitation.
According to Dr Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson, Lead author and Principal Investigator at UCL Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction, ‘These vulnerable children may be taken advantage of, including for sexual or criminal purposes by people sharing a room with them and also by staff members. No young person should be put in an adult hotel if there is any uncertainty about whether they are below 18.’
Efforts were made via a ‘safety protocol’ to conduct hourly welfare checks of specific nationalities deemed as at risk. The social worker said ‘this was the reason that most kids went missing.’ Due to the intrusive nature of this protocol, ‘most children did not cope for more than a week before leaving and never returning’.
Specifically, the report found that Albanian youths were particularly at risk. According to one social worker, these boys were ‘very vulnerable, very frightened,’ suffering from a targeted campaign against Albanian asylum seekers.
The living conditions of the child hotels were described as feeling like a ‘jail,’. The Home Office violated a July 2023 ruling from the High Court ordering the child hotels to strictly house asylum seeking children only under true emergency situations for a maximum of two weeks. Children were instead left in the volatile environment for several months in some instances. On 5th June 2024, the High Court issued a final ruling decreeing that the Home Office’s use of child hotels violated the Children Act 1989, and were immediately ordered to cease operation.
A spokesperson for the Home Office addressed this scandal, stating ‘the allegations in this report are very serious. Unaccompanied children in the asylum system can be extremely vulnerable and their welfare and safety should be a central concern. We will consider these findings carefully.’