A parliamentary report said 40 children who went missing from asylum accommodation in the UK have still not been found. Two of those children are believed to still be under 18, and the committee has asked the Home Office to explain what is being done to locate them.
On Thursday, the joint committee on human rights said most of the missing children have now been found, but it remained extremely concerned that some children who disappeared from asylum hotels in previous years are still unaccounted for. The report also said some of the children were as young as 12.
Helen Waite on June
Helen Waite, director of children’s social care at the Department for Education, told the committee in June that 472 children had gone missing in total and 432 had since been located. Her evidence was paired with guidance she said had been issued to police from the Home Office and shared with local networks, so that children could continue to be looked for and information could be updated.
The committee said the Home Office must make clear what specific action is being taken to locate the children, to investigate why they went missing, and to avoid further cases. It also asked for updates every three months, giving a regular timetable for scrutiny rather than leaving the search to ad hoc reporting.
Angela Eagle and Patricia Durr
Angela Eagle said some of the children who were found were located in exploitative situations and may have been trafficked or victims of other forms of exploitation. That is the clearest sign in the report that finding a child is not the end of the story; where they are found can shape the level of risk still facing them.
Patricia Durr, chief executive of Every Child Protected Against Trafficking UK, said: "The government cannot allow the disappearance [of children] to fade from public scrutiny. It is a significant child protection failure and we strongly support the committee’s call for regular public reporting and greater transparency about what is being done to find those who remain missing, understand why so many children disappeared, and ensure this can never happen again."
The issue sits against the Home Office’s use of hotels to house unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, a practice the high court ruled in 2023 was unlawful. For families, advocates, and safeguarding workers, the immediate test is whether the new three-month reporting cycle produces named action on the 40 children still missing, or only another count.
