Human trafficking gangs are reported to have kidnapped hundreds of asylum-seeker children from outside hotels where they are being accommodated by the UK Government.

Reports say vulnerable children were being taken off the streets outside hotels and bundled into cars after details of the scandal were leaked by child protection sources and a UK Home Office whistle blower.

The whistle blower detailed that an estimated ten per cent of children were going missing each week after seeing children from a Home Office run hotel in Hythe, Kent being effectively trafficked. 

On the south coast of England, the targeting of helpless children has reportedly become frequent.

Robert Jenrick

The abductions were confirmed in Parliament recently by Britain’s Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, sparking calls for an investigation.

“Out of the 4,600 unaccompanied children that have been accommodated in hotels since July 2021, there have been 440 missing occurrences and 200 children still remain missing,” Mr Jenrick told Parliament.

Approximately 13 of the 200 missing children are under the age of 16, and one is female according to government data.

Of the missing children, 88 per cent, are Albanian nationals, and the remaining 12 per cent are from Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Vietnam, Pakistan and Turkey.

Mr Jenrick blamed the problem on an increase in migrant boat crossings through the English Channel to the United Kingdom which left the government “no alternative” than to use “specialist hotels” to accommodate minors as of July 2021.

Although the contracted use of hotels was meant to be a temporary solution, there were still four in operation as of October with over 200 rooms designated to child migrants, according to a government report.

British charities and migrant rights groups have long complained about the bad conditions in the country’s overwhelmed and underfunded asylum system.

The number of asylum claims processed in the UK has collapsed in recent years, leaving people in limbo for years in some cases.

Following media reports ab out the missing children, calls have been mounting for an urgent investigation into the matter, with the Labor opposition party, human rights organisations as well as local authorities demanding urgent action.

The Home Office responded saying it had “robust safeguarding procedures” in place and that “when a child goes missing, local authorities work closely with agencies, including the police, to urgently establish their whereabouts”.

Labor’s Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper blamed human traffickers in her response to Parliament saying “children are literally being picked up from outside the building, disappearing and not being found. They are being taken from the street by traffickers”.

“Urgent and serious action” is needed to crack down on gangs to keep children and young people safe,” Ms Cooper said.

“We know from Greater Manchester Police, they’ve warned asylum hotels and children’s homes are being targeted by organised criminals. And in this case, there is a pattern here that gangs know where to come to get the children, often likely because they trafficked them here in the first place,” she said.

UK charity Refugee Action said that it was “scandalous that children who have come to this country to ask for safety are being put in harm’s way”.

“Ultimate responsibility lies with the Home Secretary, and her decision to run an asylum system based not on compassion, but hostility,” the group said.

UK charity the Refugee Council said it was “deeply concerned by the practice of placing separated children in Home Office accommodation, outside of legal provisions, putting them at risk of harm with over 200 of them having gone missing”.