UK: Over 50 child asylum seekers remain missing after vanishing from Kent care

Freedom of Information data from Kent County Council (KCC), which is led by Reform UK, has revealed that 345 children have gone missing from its care, with 56 still unaccounted for.

Between 2021 and 2023, when the Home Office operated two hotels in Kent for child asylum seekers, 132 children were reported missing. Of those, 108 were later found, but 24 remain unaccounted for. From 2020 to August 2025, another 213 children went missing from the council’s reception centres, with 182 found and 32 still missing.

More than 50 unaccompanied child asylum seekers who went missing after arriving in the United Kingdom and entering local authority care are still unaccounted for, according to figures obtained by The Guardian.

Many of these children arrived in small boats or hidden in lorries and are believed to have fallen into the hands of traffickers. Kent remains a key entry point for many.

Albanian children made up the largest group to disappear, representing half of those from the Home Office hotels (68) and over a quarter from the reception centres (65). The next largest groups were Afghans and Iranians.

Esme Madill of the Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit at Islington Law Centre said: “These figures are shocking. Behind each number is a frightened child who will already have experienced egregious human rights abuses before arriving in the UK seeking safety. When we represent children who have escaped after being trafficked whilst ‘missing’ in the UK, we see how their mental and physical health is permanently harmed by the abuse they experience during this time.

“For one child to go missing represents an abject failure of the state to protect the most fragile and abused in their care. These numbers are in the hundreds.”

She added that more must be done to locate missing children. “They have not chosen to ‘go missing’. These children should be playing football in the park and preparing for their GCSEs, not servicing trafficking gangs in conditions we know include being chained to furniture, physically and sexually assaulted, and punished by being starved of food.”

In December 2023, a long-running High Court case ruled that the Home Office’s practice of housing lone child asylum seekers in hotels was unlawful. Following the ruling, KCC agreed to strengthen child protection by expanding its use of reception centres. However, since then, another 44 children have gone missing from these facilities, with 10 still missing and 34 found.

Patricia Durr, chief executive of Every Child Protected Against Trafficking (ECPAT) UK, said the data was deeply concerning. “Once a child does go missing, the risk that they are being exploited increases significantly and they are certainly more vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking,” she said.

“Our research over many years shows just how much more at risk unaccompanied children are as they are separated from home, families, friends and communities and may have been trafficked into the UK, trafficked en route, or trafficked after arrival.”

She urged the government and authorities “to prioritise child safeguarding over other considerations, to afford unaccompanied children the care and protection they need and ensure that all decisions are made in children’s best interests.”

A KCC spokesperson said: “Any child or young person missing from care is a serious concern and we take every effort to protect them.

“Unaccompanied asylum seeker children are vulnerable to being trafficked and exploited due to their separation from family and circumstances of their journeys to the UK.”

The spokesperson said social workers assess the risk of exploitation and work with agencies such as the police and the Home Office. “KCC also refers children to mechanisms and services to help manage the risk of exploitation in the UK, including the National Referral Mechanism and the Independent Child Trafficking Guardian Service. Even then, it is challenging to prevent all children from going missing.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The safety and welfare of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children remains a priority, and we take children going missing extremely seriously. We continue to regularly review our systems for updates if this takes place, sharing relevant information with local police forces and local authorities investigating the matter.”

(The Guardian UK)

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