10,000 Refugee Children Missing - Europol

Kylabelle · Feb 1, 2016

Many children emigrate alone. And many are unaccounted for.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/30/fears-for-missing-child-refugees

At least 10,000 unaccompanied child refugees have disappeared after arriving in Europe, according to the EU’s criminal intelligence agency. Many are feared to have fallen into the hands of organised trafficking syndicates.

In the first attempt by law enforcement agencies to quantify one of the most worrying aspects of the migrant crisis, Europol’s chief of staff told the Observer that thousands of vulnerable minors had vanished after registering with state authorities.

Brian Donald said 5,000 children had disappeared in Italy alone, while another 1,000 were unaccounted for in Sweden. He warned that a sophisticated pan-European “criminal infrastructure” was now targeting refugees. “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.”

I don't think a very high percentage of these can have been "passed on to family members." I doubt if that many of them have family members in stable circumstances, in Europe. Some, but not many.

regdog · Feb 2, 2016

I don't think many have ended up with family either.

Kylabelle · Feb 2, 2016

That wry joke "won't somebody think of the children" isn't real funny right now.

This, and the Boko Haram atrocities, and the children imprisoned in Australia -- not to mention last year's flood of unaccompanied child migrants from Central and South America northward to the States here -- it says something about what we think of our children, as a world.... or maybe, as a First World of privilege....

It's hard to fathom the extent of this. What does it mean when a species disregards its offspring to this extent? A species that in healthy circumstances cares for its offspring for close to two decades of life? Or, even when great numbers of parents believe the best way to care for their offspring is to send them off into the world alone in hope they will find a better life?

Cyia · Feb 2, 2016

10,000. The population of a small town. Three times the population of the one in which I currently live.

It's definitely possible that some of these kids have made it to relatives or friends, and it's possible that some have simply fallen off the radar because they're too young to know what they should do to get help, some may have kept travelling after registering, but knowing the percentages as they apply to unaccompanied minors who try and cross the US border, those are not good numbers.

Xelebes · Feb 2, 2016

IT actually says quite a bit of the species resilience. When offspring die quickly, it promotes the mature specimens' fecundity. This is what is beginning to be recognised in the wild. Since humans hunt adults and not children, it suppresses the prey species into a more docile and less fecund form, eventually changing the species altogether (see the difference between the auroch and the cow.) In the first world, we do not have high infant mortality so we opt to have less children. This results in much more concern for each and every child.

Kylabelle · Feb 2, 2016

Well, I am not sure we WANT to promote human fecundity. And, does it indicate species reslience when a species rather suddenly turns a high number of its offspring into shark food or the equivalent?

Though I will say, your point of view has a comforting quality, in a way....But it doesn't follow upon the actual facts, that I can see.

Xelebes · Feb 2, 2016

There is pressures all around. A die off does not indicate that a species is not resilient. It has just demonstrated that it has become too large for the environment. When the environment can handle more, growth returns.

Right now, there is a margin that is being exploited to further the growth. Parents sending off their children with abandon to people who care much more for the welfare and the prolonging of the life of their children.

Kylabelle · Feb 2, 2016

Xelebes said:
Parents sending off their children with abandon to people who care much more for the welfare and the prolonging of the life of their children.

They -- and we -- hope.

I get your point, Xelebes. It still doesn't feel right or good.

mccardey · Feb 2, 2016

Xelebes said:
There is pressures all around. A die off does not indicate that a species is not resilient. It has just demonstrated that it has become too large for the environment. When the environment can handle more, growth returns.

Right now, there is a margin that is being exploited to further the growth. Parents sending off their children with abandon to people who care much more for the welfare and the prolonging of the life of their children.

Are we still talking about refugee children? Because I'm not sure that that's how it happens. For the most part, it's parents in desperate straits, sending their children away in the hope they will live.

Xelebes · Feb 2, 2016

mccardey said:
Are we still talking about refugee children? Because I'm not sure that that's how it happens.

I was including the children being sent on trains from Central and South America. It is less so when we speak of the refugee children. My post was largely addressing the expansion of the topic at hand by Kylabelle.

mccardey · Feb 2, 2016

Ah. Thanks.

Kylabelle · Feb 2, 2016

Well, I think the parents in Central and South America were/are also in quite desperate straits, possibly somewhat less desperate but not by much. And most of them did and do NOT know where their children will end up, nor to whom their care will be given. The whole damn thing is desperate.

And some of the children, in both situations, have already lost their families and are setting out on their own. None of it is a pretty picture, at all.

Kylabelle · Feb 3, 2016

A third of migrants sailing to Greece are children:

Children now make up over a third of the migrants making the perilous sea crossing from Turkey to Greece, the UN said Tuesday, as two more babies drowned off Europe's shores.
For the first time since the start of the migrant crisis in Europe, there are also now more women and children crossing the border from Greece to Macedonia than adult males, according to UN children's agency UNICEF.

10,000 Refugee Children Missing - Europol

Kylabelle

unaccounted for

regdog

The Scavengers

Kylabelle

unaccounted for

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

Xelebes

Delerium ex Ennui

Kylabelle

unaccounted for

Xelebes

Delerium ex Ennui

Kylabelle

unaccounted for

mccardey

Xelebes

Delerium ex Ennui

mccardey

Kylabelle

unaccounted for

Kylabelle

unaccounted for