UK charity takes legal action against Home Office over child refugees
A prominent British refugee charity has begun legal proceedings against the Home Office over its failure to provide shelter for unaccompanied children seeking asylum in Europe.
Lawyers for ‘Help Refugees’ slammed the failure of Home Secretary Amber Rudd to relocate kids from a refugee camp in the French city of Calais.
The legal papers state that because of this failure, children “are exposed to serious risks of abuse and exploitation.”
“We absolutely think that the camp shouldn’t be there and no human being should live in those conditions, but we need to make sure that the French keep their word so that proper alternative accommodation is provided and that the eviction is carried out as humanely as possible,” said Josie Naughton, co-founder of Help Refugees.
Concerns are growing about the safety of several hundred unaccompanied refugee children in the French shelter in Calais ahead of its demolition, which is expected to begin next week.
Lily Caprani from UNICEF UK said, “We are urgently calling for the UK to make sure comprehensive care plans are in place so that frightened children are not scattered by the bulldozers and facing a winter alone without a home. Unless the authorities do the right thing, it is likely many children will now go missing or attempt more dangerous crossings to reach family in the UK.”
Charities warn that there has been no attempt by the French or the UK authorities to re-house the children in safe alternative accommodation.
Earlier this week, 10 British lawmakers urged Rudd to transfer some unaccompanied refugee children to the UK.
“Time is running out. Unless we step into the breach it will be a disaster. We haven’t got any more time for saying it is complicated. We need a process now. The government can’t just wait it out and hope the problem goes away,” said Labour MP Stella Creasy.
Hundreds of child refugees have disappeared since arriving in the UK, with many possibly being exploited by human traffickers in the form of sexual abuse or modern slavery, according to a recent report by The Independent.
A study conducted earlier this year by Europol, the EU’s criminal intelligence agency, found that 10,000 child refugees have gone missing across Europe since arriving in the continent.
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