Council data obtained by the Guardian shows 345 children have gone missing in recent years, many probably taken by traffickers
More than 50 lone child asylum seekers who disappeared soon after arriving in the UK 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.
Between 2021 and 2023, when the Home Office operated two hotels for children in Kent, along with hotels in other areas, 132 children went missing from those two hotels. Of these, 108 were later found but 24 are still missing. Between 2020 and August 2025, 213 children went missing from the council’s reception centres for this group of children, with 182 found and 32 still missing.
…
Esme Madill, of the Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit at Islington Law Centre, said: “These figures are shocking. Behind each number is a frightened child who will already have experienced egregious human rights abuses before arriving in the UK seeking safety. When we represent children who have escaped after being trafficked whilst ‘missing’ in the UK, we see how their mental and physical health is permanently harmed by the abuse they experience during this time.
“For one child to go missing represents an abject failure of the state to protect the most fragile and abused in their care. These numbers are in the hundreds.”
…
Original article at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/01/more-than-50-child-asylum-seekers-still-missing-after-disappearing-from-kent-care