Professor John Robertson OBA
In the Guardian today:
More than 2,000 children who have been trafficked or who arrived in the UK alone to claim asylum disappeared from social services’ care last year, according to freedom of information data shared with the Guardian.
The authors of a report, Until Harm Ends, submitted FoI requests to children’s services departments in councils across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland asking for information about trafficked children and those who arrived alone in the UK and claimed asylum, who then went missing after being taken into care.
Data from 135 local authorities revealed that out of 2,335 children identified as having been trafficked or suspected of having been trafficked, 864 (37%) were reported missing.
There’s no Four Nations breakdown in full report: https://www.missingpeople.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Until-Harm-Ends-2025.pdf
Nor, strangely but I suppose typically, is there any awareness of the very different situation in Scotland.
In the Guardian, in November 2025:
More than 50 lone child asylum seekers who disappeared soon after arriving in the UK [sic] and while in the care of the authorities are still missing, according to data obtained by the Guardian.
Many of the missing children arrived in small boats or hidden in the backs of lorries and are thought to have been taken by traffickers. Kent is often the place where they arrive.
Freedom of information data from Kent county council (KCC), which is controlled by Reform UK, has documented 345 children going missing from their area, with 56 of those still missing.
There are reports of child asylum seekers or child refugees going missing in Scotland though the numbers are much smaller than in even this one county in England. In 2017, the Daily Record 5 out of 46 going missing.1 Between 2018 and 2020, the Ferret reported 11 out of 600 going missing.2
Sources:
- https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/children-trafficked-scotland-vanished-council-13848280
- https://theferret.scot/missing-trafficked-children-protection-crisis/
How is his contrast explained?
Scotland IS different as it protects unaccompanied children seeking asylum
In the HOUSE OF LORDS European Union Committee 48th Report of Session 2017–19 HL Paper 428 Brexit: refugee protection and asylum policy, we read:
‘The Refugee Council, for example, noted that unaccompanied children seeking asylum in Scotland and Northern Ireland had access to independent guardians, but that an equivalent service was only available to children in England and Wales who had [and who could prove that they had] experienced modern slavery.’
This follows the research the University of Birmingham showing that ‘EU families in Scotland feel more welcome and safer than south of the border.’
Click to access eurochildren-brief-8-sigona-godin-scotland.pdf
Earlier reports here reveal a consistently more humanitarian approach to refugees and other migrants:
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 