Children missing from Home Office hotels likely to have been trafficked, report finds

Scores of asylum-seeking children are still missing from the UK’s Home Office hotels as a new report reveals that many are likely to have been trafficked.

The most recent figures show that 118 unaccompanied children remain unaccounted for, some as young as 12. The study, released on Wednesday, is the first to conclude that children placed inside the hotels were at “increased risk of trafficking”, contradicting Home Office claims that the youngsters were not exploited.

Experts said the findings reinforced demands for an official inquiry into the “national scandal” .

The report, by the University College London (UCL) and Ecpat UK, was commissioned after it was revealed last year that dozens of asylum-seeking children were kidnapped by criminal gangs from hotels run by the Home Office. Basic checks to keep youngsters safe were not carried out in a scandal regarded among the most shameful of the last government.

The new report details interviews with professionals involved in the care of the children, including a former Home Office hotel worker who knew of three trafficking incidents from their hotel. Traffickers contacted the young people, they said, “via a fake [social media] account or Facebook … [It] is not that they are naive, but when in such a bad situation, they think: ‘OK, it’s the risk but this place is also bad.’”

Researchers found that Home Office attempts to protect the children actually drove them into the hands of criminals. Hotel staff were instructed to knock on the doors of children every hour throughout the night, especially for nationalities deemed to be of high risk of going missing, such as Albanians.

“Ironically, [this was] the reason that most kids went missing,” said the former Home Office hotel worker.

Seven hotels were run by the Home Office to accommodate minors who arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel in small boats , many from Africa, including Eritrea and Sudan. Such hotels were in operation from 2021 until January 2024 after a high court ruling deemed them unlawful.

In total, 440 children went missing from them, with 144 not found by last November and 118 still unaccounted for in March, according the most recent update .

The report’s lead author and principal investigator, Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson, of UCL’s department of risk and disaster reduction, said: “This is a national scandal which must not be repeated. It is still not clear what attempts have been made to find those who remain missing and make sure that they are safe.”

Patricia Durr, the chief executive of Ecpat UK, added: “This research confirms our fears and emphasises the need for urgent action to find the missing children, and for a statutory independent inquiry to ensure this child protection scandal never happens again.”

One social worker told researchers that boys from Albania were “very vulnerable, very frightened” due to a “targeted campaign” against them and concerns that they may be sent home imminently.

Related: Hundreds of potentially trafficked children ‘abandoned by Home Office’

Although the hotels for children are now closed, researchers also found significant concern that youngsters seeking asylum were being incorrectly assessed as above 18 and placed in adult hotels, where they risked sexual abuse and exploitation. Several child-protection experts highlighted safeguarding risks from children forced to share rooms with traumatised adults.

Ayeb-Karlsson added: “Children who are incorrectly determined as adults are deprived of their rights to education, protection and safeguarding.”

Durr urged the new government to scrap the “catastrophic” Illegal Migration Act , which allows the Home Office to directly provide accommodation for unaccompanied children.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The allegations in this report are very serious. Unaccompanied children in the asylum system can be extremely vulnerable and their welfare and safety should be a central concern. We will consider these findings carefully.

“A new government is determined to restore order to the asylum system so that it operates swiftly, firmly and fairly, and ensures the rules are properly enforced.”