Grown men pretending to be children

[Happypie]

AIBU to be very worried that safeguarding has broken down in England. I have worked in several schools in London where some of the newly arrived “children” were grown men. We have complained to social services and they admitted that the pupils were blatantly men but there was nothing they could do.
These men are being put into classes and foster homes with actual children.
We do not allow adults without DBS checks to have unfettered access to children unless they pretend to be children.
Head teachers hands are also tied. The only way to change things seems to be through parent complaints like in the story below. This is not safeguarding. www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-suffolk-46070239

I'm certainly not for the demonising of migrants, but it is realistic to take a cautious approach. Not all of these people are vulnerable innocents and even where they are, they aren't all necessarily good people.

Not putting the safety of our own children at risk should be the first job and if that means medical screenings to test the validity of claims made about age, then so be it. Only then are we in a position to look at helping those who need it.

Ultimately though, a solution is required to discourage people from illegally entering Europe in the first place.

Many of the migrants are from sub-saharan Africa. Whose 'fault' is that?

And if interfering in the affairs of sovereign nations is what, in part, caused this situation to arise (disputed), how is more interfering going to help? I'm playing devil's advocate here as I don't have the answers, but saying it's all our fault so we needed to suck it up, helps nobody. And certainly not those on the breadline in the UK, who are forced to share their scarce resources.

I agree with all your posts zzzzz

Implying, then.

What do you mean by the boot being on the other foot, here?

If I was a genuine refugee, then I’d hope my basic/immediate needs were covered temporarily until it was safe for me to return.

However, how many are genuine refugees and how many are economic migrants who are taking advantage of the situation?

It certainly isn't the responsibility of Europe to provide a ’better life’ (often at taxpayers expense) to anyone who fancies it.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. Imagine you or yours are the refugees solo in a new country. What should happen

That in itself doesn’t make sense.

(My family were refugees).

If your family are living in a country that isn’t safe then you all are not safe.

You all go.

My grandfather sacrificed himself to save his wife and dc.

Why is it only males who are coming over.
If they consider themselves to be refugee status what happened to the rest of the family.

Why are they still in a war torn country.

My daughter is at secondary school. I would be very worried if she had a man in his 30’s, in her class who is as a student who is pretending to be 15. What mother wouldn’t be worried.

Zzz I hate the way you suggest we should stop safeguarding children in order to be kind.

But we don’t know how old they are, that’s the problem.

But in the meantime I have a daughter at a state secondary school. Do you have children zzzz?

It's not for me to speak for others, but I wonder if some of the frustration around this subject is down to the seeming lack of welcome for any suggestion. So we get:

Test for age / tests aren't accurate enough
Apply for asylum in first country reached / x country is undesirable
Support folk in country of origin / Risk of colonial, little-Englander aggression
Mention that some migrants might lie / They're desperate so can't be blamed
Hope for migrants to stay and improve their own country / It's our fault for messing it up
Suggest looking at crime stats / You're a Daily Mail reader
And so on and so forth

For some who honestly want to help genuine refugees, it's not that we disagree with a particular point in isolation ... more that the overall weight of objection to almost any questioning can be a bit concerning

Well yes I think that’s what we all want.

Personally I think that if the test is accurate to within two years then it’s a perfectly viable test and we could just use 20 as a cut off to allow for the +/- two years issue ...

I totally agree, but even though other EU countries carry out such tests, we're told they're somehow considered "unethical" in the UK

I'd very much like to know why that is - and also whether our stance is attracting a disproportionate number who might wish to lie