UK Children's Home A Front for Child Trafficking Ring

by Amanda Kloer · 2009-05-09 09:00:00 UTC
Topics:

If a home for trafficked children lost 77 kids in the span of three years, you might think they would face some pretty serious scrutiny.  Well, not if that home for trafficked children was really just a front for organization crime to re-traffic already victimized children in the UK.  And the added punch in the pace is that this is not a private charity which fell into criminal control, but rather a government-owned home operated by the London borough of Hillingdon.

The scandal shows gaping holes in the British immigration system, which was responsible for ensuring the children's safety and oversight for the government-run home where they were placed.  Most of the children at the home were Chinese, and they generally arrived alone at Heathrow airport and were taken to the home for "safety".  However, this protective home is really just a staging ground for a trafficking operation, and the vast majority of kids have disappeared within a week.  The girls were mostly sent to brothels around the UK.  Authorities suspect the boys were trafficked into street peddling and marijuana farming. Christine Beddoe, the chief executive of Ecpat UK, a charity that campaigns against child trafficking, said

The Hillingdon experience is of such national significance that it cannot be swept under the carpet. We have been calling on government for an inquiry into missing children for years. Every year we are ignored, hundreds more children are being exploited.

I know that we here in the U.S. are far from perfect, but really?  You lost 77 kids over 3 years and no one noticed! While this could be attributed to an immigration system with the functional modernity of a rusty Edsel with an 8-track, I think it smacks of something much more sinister.  I just don't understand how you lose 77 kids from a government-run shelter and not notice without some level of corruption going on in government.  I hope that UK citizens are outraged at this obvious gross misuse of taxpayer money and trust.

Image from jesusbewith.us

Amanda Kloer is a Change.org Editor and has been a full-time abolitionist in several capacities for seven years. Follow her on Twitter @endhumantraffic
PREVIOUS STORY:
Freedom for the Weekend: KOK
NEXT STORY:
Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, how are you going to take action?

COMMENTS (3)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.