Only 20 unaccompanied children have been allowed into the UK under a scheme begun more than two years ago to resettle 3,000 vulnerable refugee children from conflict zones in the Middle East and north Africa.
Figures obtained by the Observer reveal the paltry number of minors permitted to come to the UK under the Home Office’s Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement Scheme (VCRS), announced in April 2016. This is the only way for unaccompanied youngsters from outside Europe to legally move to the UK.
Separate new figures also reveal an “incredibly low” take-up under the Dubs amendment, which was also launched in April 2016 but is geared to allowing unaccompanied child refugees from Europe into the UK. The Dubs scheme would resettle around 3,000 children but ministers controversially set a limit of 480, despite councils saying they could find space for far more. However, new figures revealed in a parliamentary answer show less than half that number – 220 – have been transferred to the UK.
The two sets of new data show the UK has accepted 240 unaccompanied refugee children in the past 30 months, fewer than the number of child refugees – around 300 – estimated to have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean in 2017.
Alf Dubs, the Labour peer, is calling on the government to accept 10,000 vulnerable children over the next decade, explained: “This represents just three children a year in each local authority. As other countries close their doors, Britain has an opportunity to show global leadership on the protection of child refugees.”
The sluggish response of the UK government is, say refugee charities, compounded by the deteriorating conditions of the camps in Europe that children are currently living in. Safe Passage estimates that in Italy alone, at least 7,000 unaccompanied children have run away from the care of the authorities. “We are working with children in desperate situations: some are street homeless, and many are living in camps with their lives on hold,” said Beth Gardiner-Smith of the charity Safe Passage.
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