Unaccompanied migrant children being sent to UK jail housing sex offenders: Report

Migrant children who have arrived in Britain by small boats are being placed in an adult prison which also holds significant number of sex offenders, reported The Guardian.

The report said that cases of such unaccompanied children, many of whom are victims of human trafficking, have been sent to HMP Elmley Prison in Kent which also houses foreign adult prisoners.

The most recent inspection of the prison where foreign nationals are being held also houses sex offenders.

An organisation namied Humans For Rights Network has identified 14 unaccompanied children so far who have been sent to an adult prison. One among them has reportedly spent months in Elmley when they were 14-year-old.

Most of the cases include children from Sudan or South Sudan, who have travelled to UK via Libya. According to the organisation, most of these children are trafficked or have suffered exploitation.

Maddie Harris, of Human Rights Network was quoted by Guardian. She said that children who get sent to adult prisons are among the most "profoundly harmed"

“These children are locked down in their cells, not knowing who to call for help, prevented from adequately accessing legal advice and from challenging the arbitrary decision made about their ages by immigration officials upon arrival in the UK. These are children looking for safety who instead find themselves in an adult prison, denied that protection and exposed to great harm,” she said.

“It is wrong to criminalise these children and dangerous to send them to adult men’s prisons,” said Anita Hurrell, who is head of the migrant children’s project at the children’s charity Coram.

According to the data from the Observer, hundreds of asylum-seeking children are being wrongly treated as adults by the Home Office officials as the children undergo age assessments when they arrive in UK.

“Age assessment has developed into the most monstrous of procedural devices,” said Syd Bolton, co-director of Equal Justice For Migrant Children. Bolton was quoted by The Guardian.

He said that he thought the practice to be a "deliberate barrier to accessing asylum protection and denying young asylum seekers access to children’s services. It is a major tool of the Home Office in discrediting an asylum claim.”

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