Guest post: "Britain must not turn its back on child refugees in Europe"

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I can only imagine my desperation if I had to consider sending my boys away just to keep them safe.

But if I ever had to, I’d want a mother like Karen to be there for them. Karen is an amazing woman who told her story of fostering a refugee boy and brought huge attention to a campaign to get more refugee children settled safely in Britain.

This week, MPs had the chance to vote to let mothers like Karen keep doing what they want to do - opening their homes and their hearts to refugee children who are in Europe all alone without a mum or dad to look after them. I'm ashamed to say that they did not, and that the government decided to close the door to the thousands of children who need our help. The campaign was only asking for 3,000 children to come to Britain. To put that in context – that would be just five children per parliamentary constituency, and nowhere near the 10,000 mostly Jewish children that Britain saved through the Kindertransport before the Second World War.

I took a special interest in this vote because I have been working at Theirworld to help create school places for Syrian refugee children in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, where many fleeing families arrive first. I have been focused on how to make sure that children never embark on a further dangerous journey to find a safe haven. When I saw that the British parliament was considering a vote to offer a welcome to 3,000 lone children who really need us to open our hearts and homes, I wanted to add my support. So last week I wrote to my local MP for the first time ever. I wanted his backing for refugee children, an issue that goes well beyond party politics. I know lots of Mumsnetters contacted their MPs too and have heard from many of you on Twitter. It was devastating to see the government vote down the proposal to give safety to lone refugee children in Europe.

But this does not stop there. The House of Lords last night voted to back the bill thanks to the efforts of Lord Dubs and other campaigners. So it goes back to the House of Commons next Tuesday with a chance for MPs to reconsider their vote and help 3,000 lone children.

One of the ways you can help them think again is to sign this petition. If enough of us do it then perhaps a few more MPs will listen and reconsider their vote. In pushing for this change we won't be on our own – we have the backing of lots of energetic dedicated groups like Citizens UK, Save the Children, HelpRefugees and others. This weekend the former Archbishop of Canterbury gave his blessing, arguing that this is a chance to honour what our parents and grandparents did in the face of an earlier catastrophe.

This is not a question of sparking a new political controversy - that is not my way and not the Mumsnet way, I don't think - it is a matter of simple humanity. While we can't ensure that every child is safe in his or her own country, we can act to prevent children dying on our doorstep here in Europe, and ensure a safe home and education and hope for a better future.

As long as this terrible crisis runs on and horribly on - then we have obligations to the children who are here in our continent. Our MPs now have a second chance to help these vulnerable children and we should help them to take it.

Please join me, and sign here: Britain must not turn its back on child refugees in Europe.

Cheese bless you for doing so very much more than virtue signal and verbally bully.

You actually know what you're talking about. I have two members of my family who probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for genuinely huge-hearted people like you.

I just wish the empty vessels would listen to you.

Some of these posts make me ashamed to be human.
My son, adopted In Africa along with his sister, is a social worker. He is an extremely caring person and spends all his time off driving to Calais, at his own expense, to help these children.
When he is working he spends much of his time interviewing children whose desperate parents have paid agents to bring them into this country. Together with a doctor and dentist he assesses their ages.
Any over seventeen and a half are not eligible for asylum. They are classed as adults and must apply through the normal routes. The fact that they are in the UK gives them no advantage.
Many of the children in Calais are younger than ten, many have disappeared, possibly trafficked. Nobody knows but their situation does not seem good.
These are children we are talking about. This is a humitarian disaster.
I spent my life working in African aid. It was a privilege and a wonderful life. I only wish I was young and fit enough to be out there working with the refugees now.
Could we not all do something, however small, to help these children who could so easily have been ours ?
My children were privileged. They had clothes to wear, food to eat, houses to live in and education.
No child should have any less.

emily

"Sarah, I don't think me not having a spare room is a barrier to the 3000 children coming to the UK."

So, once again, everyone else is supposed to house and support them, while those who cheerlead for open borders do nothing. If it's too hard for you, who want them so badly, then it's definitely too hard for us, who don't!

I'm also a foster carer for teenagers on the south coast . I do emergency fostering, and I've been having exactly the same experience. I currently have a lovely 15yo boy in placement, who is "stuck" here in emergency placement because there's just no longer-term placement available anywhere. He's living each day not knowing if he'll still be here for another night, and it's the same for nearly every teenager I've looked after. I regularly get calls about children from a long way away, for example late on Christmas Eve I was asked if I could take a girl from Manchester. In other words, Manchester social services will have been trying to place her for hours, and casting the net wider and wider, and had reached the south coast and still unable to find a placement. The shortage is dire and I agree we don't have the capacity sadly.

Cheese, that's interesting because PurpleCrocs, another foster carer posted thisearlier in the thread and expresses a much more positive view on helping the children and asserts it is feasible,

'I know there are massive recruitment campaigns at the moment - there are around this time every year as Fostering Fortnight is in May.

There are also lots of foster carers with empty beds at the moment who would be willing to help these children. I'm a foster carer. Several carers in my area have expressed an interest in helping out refugees, or already have foreign children living with them.

Yes the children come from very troubled backgrounds and have experienced severe trauma - so have lots of the children foster carers already care for.

From memory I think there are around 330 local authorities in England. That would mean less than 10 children per LA. Is it really better for these children to stay in the danger they're currently in?'

Your son sounds great Maud876 and you have obviously inspired him to be a caring person which is so important..

All of us feel for these young people, without a doubt!

However, they are in Europe which is a safe haven so why don't these European countries give them refuge? The Calais Jungle children should be taken and looked after by France or those countries that they first entered under the Dublin Agreement.

The UK has given £2.3billion in aid to the Middle East to assist refugees. Taking in refugees is not the only solution. The UK is assisting the region. There is more than one way to skin a cat. However, the UN has admitted that half of the money has been spent in admin costs - how can this be??? I thought the EU was bad but this is just scandalous! We should give the money to NGOs in the region as they know the needs that require addressing.

Finally, no matter how much you love your children, why would you send them across the world on their own to seek refuge and only in the UK? Call me cynical, but once your child is in, the rest of the family can follow! The occasional child might become separated from its parents but not 3,000 in Calais alone. According to the UNHCR, there are more than 80,000 lone children in Europe - a lot of children who have become separated from their parents! Are these parents careless? I think not - for many, this is a cynical ploy to assist economic migration by using their children, regardless of the danger they are placing them in. Unacceptable!! Clearly, Middle East values of human life and welfrae differ from the UKs and this must be looked into.

Having worked in Social Services and Education for most of my career, I have seen many young people, almost always male, claiming to be under sixteen when they have clearly been much older. They are playing us for fools. Of course, I would do the same if I were in their shoes (if I owned a pair)

Let's have an honest debate about this without sentimentality please.

BTW, I was brought up in care from the moment I was born until I was eighteen, so I know what it is like.

Bobby5254

Bobby Yes! The voice of common sense.

Let's have an honest debate about this without sentimentality please

If only ...

the UN has admitted that half of the money has been spent in admin costs - how can this be???

Because this is what tends to happen when huge amounts of money are made available without any real idea of where and how it's to be spent. It's also exactly what I meant about aid organisations and such being "an industry"

Hi Maudd!

Not so long ago we drove to meet a social worker at a service station half way between our house and the teenager's home town (an hour and a half away) for a handover of the child who we took as an emergency placement. There was nobody in her borough who had a bed, or even the neighbouring boroughs. It's a dire situation for these older children.

Then we've had to keep bedrooms here empty because we had a child in placement who is a danger to other children, so that's technically empty beds I guess.

When our teenager foster child turned 18 last year she was told she would be allocated a council flat, as all foster children are when they leave care, but there was such a shortage of flats that it was over 6 months before she even was registered to bid on properties. At that point we then had a fight to make sure she didn't get pushed into taking a flat in the local high rise block which has a big problem with Somalian drug gangs. She is far too vulnerable to cope with that kind of stuff. Luckily it turned out ok for her, but it's a worrying time for our looked after children.

great post, Bobby.

Let's have an honest debate about this without sentimentality please

And use of the word Nazi, or competitive sadness or bullying demands that posters subscribe to an arbitrary hierarchy of sentimentality sympathy based on ability to pay smugglers.

There are heartbreaking circumstances for millions of children born into poverty, disease and worse all over the world. I'd like to see as much hectoring and demands for our politicians to help those who couldn't even begin to dream of the luxury of turning down help because they didn't fancy the country they were travelling through.

Cheese are you me? Everything you've said resonates so much. Yy to empty beds because of a child who can't be placed alongside others, for example.

It's also difficult as regards unaccompanied young people because I think tv news footage, with pictures of very young children, often gives a skewed view of who they are. At a meeting in my LA last summer, we were told that 98% coming from Calais are young men aged 16/17, and that yes, some are older and in fact over 18, but we give them the benefit of the doubt. Also, and I know this can be a bit controversial - we were warned that some are from backgrounds where they struggle to engage with or even speak to women, and that of course makes it an even harder job. All of this has been borne out by experience among foster carers locally since then. I have huge sympathy for the young people, but I can't think how we'll find a solution to getting them properly looked after. Obviously there are younger children caught up in all of this too. The whole thing's so awful.

Bobby, you describe Europe as a 'safe haven.'

Children sleeping rough. Kept in cages. Not being schooled. Beaten by fascists and not protected by police.

Adults not allowed to work. Inadequate medical care. Landlords often unwilling to house them. Money and valuables taken from them and not returned. Abduction and beatings by locals which police turn a blind eye to. Those beating hailed as heroes.

Beatings with truncheons. Made to kneel in mud. Babies born dead. Babies moaning from the cold in tents outside in winter.

Babies not given milk. Food and water often not provided.

Refugee children and adults in boats shot at.

Numbers written on hands with black marker. Forced to detention centre. Children and adults woken each night by armed and masked guards to be searched and checked.

Blind woman imprisoned for trying to cross a border.

Refugees shot and killed for trying to pass border.

Untrained people trying to comfort parents whose second child drowned minutes ´before. Man with lacerations all over his back hiding in disused building.

Thousands of drowned babies, mums and dads. Thousands of disappearing kids.

All the above happened in Europe. Therefore it clearly isn't a safe placefor UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN to be in unnaccounted for.

Some children speak English or have relatives in the UK so want to go there because of that. There are also treaties that make us reponsible for them.

Many peoples' first country is Greece? Would you like to explain how huge numbers of refugees staying in Greece makes sense when they are so impoverished?

The child leaves to find safety. That's it.

Maud and Cheese, I don't think you are foster carers at all.

'At a meeting in my LA last summer, we were told that 98% coming from Calais are young men aged 16/17, and that yes, some are older and in fact over 18, but we give them the benefit of the doubt'.

I doubt your local authority said anything of the sort. There were no children 'coming' from Calais. The UK refused to take them so why would the local authority be discussing it and making racist implications?

But UK is in Europe, what makes you think it's any safer here given your utter lack of understanding of the care system? And why are you so hell-bent on the UK and only the UK taking these young men? Why aren't you lobbying the French government or the Greek government, or better still your own government. You don't live here Emily, your family won't be affected and you have no right rocking up here telling British citizens what they must do.
Your posts are practically c&p from the no borders website.

emily I believe Maud and cheese are foster parents. What they say resonates with my limited experience.

I know of two UK children put into foster care who were much younger one 10 and the other 11 who struggled with having their 'freedom' curtailed and both repeatedly ran away. One had a mentally ill mother and had been looking after themselves - getting themselves up and dressed and to school, washing their own clothes etc - from the age of 5. The mother's health deteriorated to the point they were a danger and the child was fostered. The child struggled with just being cared for (having a bedtime, set mealtimes, not buying their own clothes etc), no longer being responsible for themselves. The other's parent had been sent to prison and they were upset about boundaries - things like not being allowed to smoke weed in their room and needing to be home by 9.30pm.
With older teens I am sure the problems would be much worse. Not looked after teens can be hard enough to deal with. Especially when they have travelled across a continent on their own. Then add in the fact they are from a different culture, different language....
I read somewhere about unaccompanied children from the Calais jungle being placed in care in France and not wanting to go or 'running away' because it was too far for them to be able to try and get into the UK - I am sure some of them count towards the missing children.
The children in Stockholm station were placed in care homes but had refused to stay, preferred living on the street and thieving to survive.

I am also wondering with the new push on fingerprinting for migrants if more are going to now claim they are under 14 as that appears to be the youngest age at which they are fingerprinted.

There have been plenty of children coming from Calais, sadly risking their lives stowing away on vehicles through the tunnel. As for the rest of your goady comments emily where you call me a liar, I'm not going to rise to it, sorry to disappoint. I've seen on other threads that you're always spoiling for a fight and you're not getting it from me.

What a very odd thing to say Emilybohemia! I can assure you that I have been a foster carer for over ten years.

I was first registered for short term and emergency placements for children 0 - 18 years my first placement, a teenage girl arrived three weeks as an emergency placement after we had been formally accepted. She is now an adult and we are in fact having lunch with her today. We went back to panel at our first yearly review and were accepted for long term placements also.

Those of us who foster teenagers and the hard to place children know the reality of the situation, because we live with it 24 hours a day seven days a week. As of three years ago we weren't allowed respite care for the children we looked after, which made life even more taxing, when we couldn't get a weekend off or have a holiday away as adults.

Just because the truth doesn't fit your narrative doesn't make it untrue.

There are no government plans to provide for them are there maud, so why was your local authority discussing it?

I don't think what I said was odd at all cheese. I find your determined attitude that the UK can't help the child refugees, supposedly coming fromsomeone that works with children, far more 'odd.'

I find your determined attitude that the UK should help odd, given how you keep stating that Europe isn't safe.
UK IS IN EUROPE. Your posts make no sense.

Emily the LA was discussing it because they are coming here through the tunnel whether there are government plans or not! And as foster carers we needed to be informed about what to expect.

My LA, and foster carers, work hard to provide those who've made it across to here with the care, education, cultural and religious support and legal support that they need, as well as coping with how traumatised they often are, and the language barrier and so on. The problem is that I can't see an army of new foster carers wanting to do it, and that's what we need if we're to take thousands more.

I don't know what the solution is, and that's why I haven't posted on threads about this before. I've seen suggestions like filling spaces in boarding schools or holiday camps, or people willing to put an extra bed up in their own child's room, and I think those ideas are well-meant but naïve. I can't suggest an alternative, though. It's frustrating.

I'm not arguing with you Emily, you aren't a foster carer and apparently don't live in England, so I do understand it would be hard for you to get a grasp on the actual situation for those of us struggling to look after children in care in the UK.

I do think it's important for people to hear the truth of the situation from people like me and Maudd who are actually doing it.

Of course Europe is not safe when it is not adhering to international law, respecting human rights or behaving in a civilised manner toward refugees. I am asserting that the UK starts to respect international law, human rights and begins to take its reponsibility seriously, rather than saying oh fuck it,things are shit anyway, itsjust. Of course it makes sense to state that the UK moves away from its current absurd and uncivilised stance on refugees. That is the only way to ensure their safety.