Fifty refugee children are missing from a hotel that the British government plans to continue using to house under-18s.
A practice of routinely sending unaccompanied child asylum seekers to hotels has been ruled unlawful, but court documents show the Home Office wants to keep using them.
British authorities face heavy criticism for failing to protect young asylum seekers, many of whom have disappeared, including a child of 12.
Earlier this year it emerged that hundreds of migrant children had gone missing amid fears they have been abducted by criminal gangs.
The figure included 136 who went missing from a single hotel in Brighton, and the High Court in London has now been told many of them remain unaccounted for by the authorities.
In written evidence, a lawyer for Brighton and Hove City Council, Stephanie Harrison KC, said “50 remain missing” from the hotel, where they were placed by the Home Office.
She quoted a witness statement that said the hotel poses “risks of trafficking to unaccompanied children” and that it is not “fit for purpose”.
Ms Harrison was representing the council as an interested party in an action taken by Kent County Council against the Home Office, over what it claims is the unlawful way in which the government manages the way unaccompanied refugee children are housed in Britain.
Kent and Brighton both argue they have to shoulder a disproportionate burden of caring for child asylum seekers due to the Home Office's improper operation of the National Transfer Scheme, meaning many children end up in hotels.
In her submission, Ms Harrison said that after the practice of housing refugee children in hotels was found to be unlawful, Home Secretary Suella Braverman “decided against an exit strategy from hotels” in favour of minimising their use and “even their expansion”.
Ms Braverman is keeping several hotels, including the one in Brighton, “under contract” for use in emergencies.
A hotel in East Sussex has been earmarked for use to accommodate children, some of whom will be under 16, Ms Harrison told the court.
She said lone refugee children are “highly vulnerable” and that many of them “will have a history of torture, mistreatment, abuse, modern slavery and trafficking, including on their journey to the UK”.
Many will have suffered physical and mental illness “and be at risk of further harm through exploitation and/or re-trafficking”, she added.
She said Ms Braverman was unable to “sufficiently safeguard high-risk groups from trafficking”.
Kent was found to be acting unlawfully by routinely housing refugee children in hotels in an action brought by charity Every Child Protected Against Trafficking.
As part of that legal action it emerged that lone refugee children as young as 13 were staying in hotels.
Earlier this year, The National was told that people-trafficking gangs have been using mobile phone trackers to find refugee children staying in British hotels and lure them away.
A representative for The Refugee Council, a non-profit organisation that works with refugees and asylum seekers in Britain, said: “We have seen far too many children being housed in unsuitable hotels outside the child protection system.
“The children we speak to tell us that they feel anxious, scared and lonely in these hotels, and we have grave concerns about their mental and physical health.
“The government has a clear legal duty to protect these children but is failing to do so, with dozens of children seemingly having disappeared into the clutches of those who will exploit and abuse them.”
A Home Office representative said: “Due to the rise in dangerous small boats crossings, the government has had no alternative but to urgently use hotels to accommodate unaccompanied asylum-seeking children while they await placements with local authorities.
“The High Court has upheld that local authorities have a statutory duty to care for all children, including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and when a child goes missing, a multi-agency, missing persons protocol is mobilised to establish their whereabouts and ensure they are safe.”
Innotech Profile
Date started: 2013
Founder/CEO: Othman Al Mandhari
Based: Muscat, Oman
Sector: Additive manufacturing, 3D printing technologies
Size: 15 full-time employees
Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing
Investors: Oman Technology Fund from 2017 to 2019, exited through an agreement with a new investor to secure new funding that it under negotiation right now.
Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
The alternatives
• Founded in 2014, Telr is a payment aggregator and gateway with an office in Silicon Oasis. It’s e-commerce entry plan costs Dh349 monthly (plus VAT). QR codes direct customers to an online payment page and merchants can generate payments through messaging apps.
• Business Bay’s Pallapay claims 40,000-plus active merchants who can invoice customers and receive payment by card. Fees range from 1.99 per cent plus Dh1 per transaction depending on payment method and location, such as online or via UAE mobile.
• Tap started in May 2013 in Kuwait, allowing Middle East businesses to bill, accept, receive and make payments online “easier, faster and smoother” via goSell and goCollect. It supports more than 10,000 merchants. Monthly fees range from US$65-100, plus card charges of 2.75-3.75 per cent and Dh1.2 per sale.
• 2checkout’s “all-in-one payment gateway and merchant account” accepts payments in 200-plus markets for 2.4-3.9 per cent, plus a Dh1.2-Dh1.8 currency conversion charge. The US provider processes online shop and mobile transactions and has 17,000-plus active digital commerce users.
• PayPal is probably the best-known online goods payment method - usually used for eBay purchases - but can be used to receive funds, providing everyone’s signed up. Costs from 2.9 per cent plus Dh1.2 per transaction.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
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Yuki Means Happiness
Alison Jean Lester
John Murray
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
THE LOWDOWN
Romeo Akbar Walter
Rating: 2/5 stars
Produced by: Dharma Productions, Azure Entertainment
Directed by: Robby Grewal
Cast: John Abraham, Mouni Roy, Jackie Shroff and Sikandar Kher
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
