Who takes care of child refugees?

Who takes care of child refugees?

Lately I have read many news which have concern about missing child refugees. There has currently been topics like  “Migrant crisis: More than 10,000 children 'missing'” (bbc.com, January 31 2016), “No One Is Counting Europe’s Missing Refugee Children” (newsdeeply.com, July 20 2017) and “More than 100 child refugees missing in UK after being smuggled from Calais (independent.uk.com, July 22 2017). These news about missing child refugees  concern me. Feels like there is so little discussion about these cases and that is why I want to talk about it.

The articles what I found  tells how alarming the situation is. It also seems that our system is not working quite well. Articles what I found shows that in some ways it is just easier to the states not to pay attention and let the children go through the borders. This causes many different problems. For example these children are easy victims for human trafficking business. That is why we should be really concerned about these 10 000 children who have disappeared. But where do these missing refugees go and why they disappear?

                          Picture from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37617234

Many of them just disappears because it is easier way to find your relatives or find a safe place to live. Many of the children doesn`t want to stay in state where they first go. Good example is a story about  Gulwali Passarlay which is told in Helena Merriman`s article “ Why are 10,000 migrant children missing in Europe?” (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37617234) The story gives few examples why is the situation like this and why the children “disappear”. Gulwali Passarlay left Afghanistan when he was 12 years old and after many years of travelling he ended up to UK and found his brother from there. The journey wasn’t easy and this is how he describes his experiences in the article;

"We'd walk through the railway lines so the police wouldn't see us," he said. "We kept a very low profile." Other children he knew went further to avoid being caught. They burnt their fingertips or cut them off entirely so that if they were found, they couldn't be identified and sent back home. (October 12, 2016, www.bbc.com)

This tells to me that something is really badly wrong in our system. If a better way to survive is to burn or cut your fingertips than go officially through Europe's asylum system. For many it feels safer to just disappear.

"Many countries along the transit route to northern Europe adopt a 'wave through' approach where they're turning a blind eye to unaccompanied minors," she said. "They're not registering them. They're effectively encouraging them to keep going." (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37617234)

This tells a lot what is wrong with our system and why these children disappear. If the children just want to keep going and find their relatives they have to use for example smugglers. I think the most important thing is that these children could find their relatives and they could start a new life. But new safer life feels quite hard to reach if you are hiding and trying to survive.

I think that the states that let children just flow through the borders are supporting criminality. Many of the children who disappear are using smuggling to get to places. For example many of them may be forced to work in sex industry. This problem seems to be larger than I thought. We should pay more attention to it and find out what is really happening. These news and stories shows that our refugee policies have large problems. The sources should be now focused on finding children`s relatives and a place where they are able to start a safe life.

References;

BBC News, 31 January 2016, Migrant crisis: More than 10,000 children 'missing'

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35453589


Bullman May, 22 July 2017, More than 100 child refugees missing in UK after being smuggled from Calais  

://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/child-refugees-uk-missing-calais-smuggled-jungle-camp-crisis-lorries-parliament-dubs-resettlement-a7853991.html#gallery

Devlin Kayleen,  15 January 2016, what happens to lone child migrants?

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-35235528

Merriman Helena, 12 October 2016, Why are 10,000 migrant children missing in Europe?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37617234

Vidal Mario, July 20 2017, No One Is Counting Europe’s Missing Refugee Children

https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2017/07/20/no-one-is-counting-europes-missing-refugee-children