In Search of a Better Life: Unaccompanied Child Refugees

UNICEF Photo - "Migrant Boy"

Imagine yourself as a child in Syria, still living in your own town, but being separated from your parents in a situation of war. Perhaps your parents were killed, perhaps you ran away trying to find a safe place and got lost trying to find your way home because whole streets had been destroyed. At least you are in your own country, with people speaking your language. You might find neighbours or friends and at least have some remnants of your community.

Now imagine being a Syrian child refugee in a camp in Greece, or Italy or France, when there’s nobody you really know or can trust. The camp is full of people from different countries and different parts of your own country. There will be some people speaking your language but probably not from your town or village and almost certainly not from your home community.

So, which child is the more vulnerable? And the answer has to be that the unaccompanied children in European detention camps are far more vulnerable because they have NO safe community and often fall into the hands of traffickers. The individuals who offer to help them, with promises of food, clothes, and shelter, may well be unscrupulous criminals who will promise a bright future but whose intention is to sell such children into the sex trade, or as organ donors in the grisly trade of illegal transplants.

Eurotunnel is not a safe route on foot!

Britain should immediately permit the immigration of large numbers of such children by establishing a series of 21^st century “Kindertransport” trains to bring the children from the camps across Europe to safety in Britain. By not acting, we are as guilty as those who have created the problem in the first case. We have the potential to save lives, but we are looking away and we are avoiding considering what is clearly a viable and honourable option.

Maybe history will one day reveal the whole truth about 9/11 and all the subsequent events. My firm belief is that we have been hoodwinked into believing a fabric of misleading stories about extremism and terrorism when the truth is that much of the last decade has all been about oil. Many have profited by billions from this deceit, and countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have paid for these profits.

The ones who have really suffered are the children born in the 21^st century, who have lost their family and community, and are living in a highly vulnerable state across Europe. Cameron calls Britain a “Christian country,” and this is surely the time when we should demonstrate this by bringing these children to Britain and welcoming them into a loving, caring environment in our multicultural society.