Find and protect the 200 missing asylum-seeking children lost by the Home Office

Rejected 10 signatures

What the petition asks

Since 2021, 440 asylum-seeking children have gone missing and only half had returned. The 200 who are still missing may have been trafficked or coerced into criminal behaviour. The government should take immediate action to find these children and protect all children living in Home Office hostels.

Children seeking asylum as extremely vulnerable to being trafficked, abused, and coerced into criminal behaviour. They may experienced trauma back home or on their journey to the UK, and should receive support and care. Instead, a lack of security has allowed them to disappear and there appears to have been little effort to find or protect these children. It is the state’s duty to protect children under The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It is the government’s duty.

Why it was rejected

The UK Government or Parliament was already taking the action it asked for.

The Government has said that when any child goes missing, a multi-agency missing persons protocol is mobilised alongside the police and the relevant local authority to establish their whereabouts and to ensure they are safe.

You can find out more about the Government's response to this issue here, where a Minister responds to questions on this subject: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-01-24/debates/290AF292-5D7E-411C-8FB8-A6E0F288365C/UnaccompaniedAsylum-SeekingChildren

Timeline

26 Jan 2023	Petition opened for signatures
27 Jan 2023	Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 10

Status Rejected

Rejected 27 Jan 2023

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