It may not come as a surprise that many men, women, children and families are found having to flee their countries due to violence and living under a corrupted government. What does cause some stir and confusion, however, is how the places they are looking to find peace in have no concrete plan set in place to protect them.
By definition, human trafficking is “the action or practice of illegally transporting people from one country or area to another, typically for the purposes of forced labour or commercial sexual exploitation.” When attempting to cross the border, refugees are either faced with a country that closes its doors in their faces, or a country that has no idea what to with them. Because of this, many children that migrate alone have gone unaccounted for and fall into the hands of predators that traffic them.
What Are the Numbers Like? In 2016, UNICEF reported that the total number of child refugees was estimated to be 28 million. The majority of these refugees are coming from Syria and Afghanistan- two countries that have seen the greater face of chaos for years. In May of 2017, UNICEF noted that certain numbers in children refugee demographics have experienced a five- fold increase since 2010. The findings include:
§ 200,000 unaccompanied children applied for asylum across around 80 countries in 2015-2016. § 100,000 unaccompanied children were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2015-2016. § 170,000 unaccompanied children applied for asylum in Europe in 2015-2016. § Unaccompanied and separated children accounted for 92 per cent of all children arriving to Italy by sea in 2016 and the first months of 2017. § Children account for approximately 28 per cent of trafficking victims globally. § Sub-Saharan Africa and Central America and the Caribbean have the highest share of children among detected trafficking victims at 64 and 62 per cent respectively. § As much as 20 per cent of smugglers have links to human trafficking networks. How Do These Minors End Up in the Clutches of Smugglers? Because financial instability is a big issue that families in places like Syria and Afghanistan- two countries with a very high number of refugees flooding out of them- face, parents often find themselves having to allow their children to travel alone. Systems to track these minors that are migrating unaccompanied are not thought to be the most reliant, with children and smugglers being able to find their way around them. According to the Independent, “Any unaccompanied child who arrives in the UK should under law be referred by immigration or border staff to the local authority who is responsible for their welfare, but minors from Calais increasingly appear to be falling through the net and bypassing the protection systems in place.” Due to this unreliable form of tracking the children, at least 10,000 of them have dropped off the radars of official agencies in January of 2016, with ten children being reported missing per week in Sweden alone. The Independent has also stated that the average cost of facilitated crossing is thought to be around £9,000 (equivalent to $11,991.87 US dollars,) which is a sum impossible for these minors who are living below the poverty level to repay. This is when they become desperate and afraid and so find themselves in the clutches of traffickers that exploit them. Trafficked children that are between the ages of six months and 10 years are bought and sold for sums of up to $11,000. UNICEF has reported that children as young as three years old are working and are many times the main source of income in their household. This causes 2.8 million of child refugees to have no access to education.
The Dubs Scheme In 2016, Lord Alf Dubs – a former child refugee himself- tabled what is now known as the “Dub Amendment” or the “Dub Scheme.” It has now been incorporated into UK Law as Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016. The purpose of this law was to give minors (mainly in Greece) a safe and secure passageway into the UK from countries like Greece and France.What was promised in this Amendment was cut short when no action was taken to help those that had been awaiting word on their application status for over a year. In the end, only 350 unaccompanied minors were provided sanctuary in the UK, which was only half the number of children that had been originally envisaged.
The Dublin Regulation Similar to the Dubs Scheme, the Dublin Regulation was meant to provide refugees with an opportunity to legally and safely cross to the UK. The motive of passing this EU law was to reunite families. The law states that it will allow refugees to seek asylum in a country where their family members have already obtained legal status and are under international protection. Although the Dublin Regulation has made such promises, refugees often times do not come forward to take advantage of this opportunity. This is because they are not given the support to navigate through the legal system in Dublin.
Conclusion These are children fleeing their countries looking for a way out of the hardships they faced there, but instead become exploited in ways that no one ever should. Although a number of individuals fight to get laws like the Dub Scheme and the Dublin Regulation passed, it many times gets shut down by house and/or state members before it reaches the peak of its purpose. The actions of those in power makes refugee children more susceptible to being thrown into the human trafficking world.
What Can You Do to Help? Most of the help and attention that the children receive comes from volunteers whose mission is to give them access to basic things such as education and a safe roof to live under. Below are links to just a few websites out of many that you can reach out to in order to help: