Some 9,000 Refugee Children Reported Missing in Germany

© Reuters

Up to 9,000 refugee children and teens had been reported missing as of July 1, according to Germany's federal police. The figure appears to have nearly doubled since the start of the year.

At least 8,991 refugee children under 17 years of age are no longer in contact with authorities according to figures revealed by Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) at the request of German daily "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung." In January this year only 4,749 were known to be missing. While most of the missing are in their teens, 867 of them are said to be under 13 years old.

A spokeswoman for BKA noted, however, that not all of the missing children are necessarily in danger.

“In many cases, these children’s disappearances are not haphazard, some of them travel to visit their parents, relatives or friends in other German cities or even in other European countries,” the spokeswoman told the newspaper, explaining that after they eventually return, families often do not inform authorities of the fact and the names of the ‘missing’ children remain in the database.

Apart from that, there is the problem of multiple registrations when kids move to a different region, or after losing IDs, with their names often spelled differently, which results in doppelgangers in the system. Thus most disappearances are thought to be harmless. 

"We don’t have evidence that some of the missing minors may have fallen into the hands of criminals,” the spokeswoman stated.

Of course, criminals are not in the habit of leaving evidence around. Are they actually looking for it?

She also defended her heavily-debated policy of welcoming and integrating migrants, and shed light on a set of new measures aimed at curbing their numbers, including some toughening laws aimed at human trafficking. An initiative is also in the works to better integrate refugees that qualify for asylum.

Last year, over 5,800 refugee kids were recorded missing in the country. While authorities failed to explain their disappearance, the head of domestic intelligence warned at the time that Islamist recruiters could be specifically targeting refugee minors.

Germany’s Green party also spoke out, slamming the government for not taking seriously “the dangers of forced prostitution and exploitation.”

This is my biggest concern. Germany's frantic and haphazard rush to accept as many migrants as it could possibly get into the country was an absolute Christmas for criminal gangs who abduct, use and abuse children trafficking them across Europe. 

Please pray for these children, they are quite desperate and the worst thing is, no-one is looking for them.

EU police agency Europol, at the start of the year said that up to 10,000 unaccompanied refugee minors have gone missing after arriving in Europe. Half a year later, they did not issue fresh figures, but recently said the number is now much higher.

Germany is expecting an estimated 300,000 new refugees this year. German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday assured the public that her Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) is ready to cope with these numbers in an interview with Germany’s ARD Channel.

Yeah, right!

Thousands of Migrant Children Disappearing into Slavery and Sex-Slavery Markets

10,000 kids missing in EU as criminals ‘exploit’ migrant flow – Europol chief of staff

This is a nightmare!

© Darrin Zammit Lupi / Reuters

Human traffickers are taking advantage of Europe’s refugee crisis to find sex and labor slaves, particularly children, Europol says. The EU police’s chief of staff told the Observer that some 10,000 minors have gone missing since crossing into the EU.

EU refugee & migrant influx

Thousands of underage refugees have reportedly disappeared since registering with authorities, Europol’s chief of staff, Brian Donald, told The Observer.

At least 5,000 children have gone missing in Italy alone, Donald said, adding that another 1,000 have vanished in Sweden.

Donald stressed that an EU-wide “criminal infrastructure” could be specially targeting refugee children.

“It’s not unreasonable to say that we’re looking at 10,000-plus children. Not all of them will be criminally exploited; some might have been passed on to family members. We just don’t know where they are, what they’re doing or whom they are with.”

Moreover, there is already evidence of sexual exploitation, especially in Germany and Hungary. “An entire [criminal] infrastructure has developed over the past 18 months around exploiting the migrant flow. There are prisons in Germany and Hungary where the vast majority of people arrested and placed there are in relation to criminal activity surrounding the migrant crisis,” said Donald.

Thickening the plot, Police have discovered that the illegal gangs helping refugees come to the EU are the same gangs involved with human-trafficking. “The ones who have been active in human smuggling are now appearing in our files in relation to migrant smuggling,” said Donald.

The fate of unaccompanied children refugees is becoming a major concern in the EU, as the number of missing minors swells.

UK charity Save the Children estimates that at least 26,000 lone refugee children entered Europe in 2015. It has recorded multiple cases of sexual abuse, violence, and extortion involving child refugees and is calling on the UK to resettle 3,000 of them as soon as possible. 

“These children need and deserve our help and protection. Left to fend for themselves, lone children are extremely vulnerable along the refugee route. Children report having been beaten, extorted, and sexually abused on their journey,” Save the Children CEO Justin Forsyth said.

Meanwhile, Europol estimates that 27% of the refugees that arrived in Europe in 2015 were minors.

“Whether they are registered or not, we’re talking about 270,000 children. Not all of those are unaccompanied, but we also have evidence that a large proportion might be,” said Donald, signaling that his estimate of 10,000 missing child refugees is likely much too low.

Sweden alone received a total of 35,369 unaccompanied, underage refugees last year, according to the country’s migration agency, Migrationsverket.

The Observer reported in December that the number of children asylum seekers disappearing in the UK had doubled over the past year. 

Experts have warned that unaccompanied children migrants are the most vulnerable group.

“Unaccompanied minors from regions of conflict are by far the most vulnerable population; those without parental care that have either been sent by their families to get into Europe first and then get the family over, or have fled with other family members,” The Guardian quoted Mariyana Berket from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as saying.

Donald urges people to keep an eye out for missing refugee kids, since they could be subject to abuse in their communities. “These kids are in the community, if they’re being abused it’s in the community. They’re not being spirited away and held in the middle of forests, though I suspect some might be, they’re in the community – they’re visible. As a population we need to be alert to this.”

Earlier this week, British Prime Minister David Cameron refused to take in 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children scattered across Europe, claiming an open door policy would encourage more to make the perilous journey.

However, as a concession, the British government said it will accept more unaccompanied children from camps surrounding Syria. It said the children would be accepted on top of the 20,000 Britain has already pledged to take by 2020.

Britain’s International Development Committee (IDC) said in early January that it is particularly concerned about the plight of refugee children who have been left to fend for themselves in Europe.