Refugee Youth at Risk of Trafficking While Heading to UK

The oncoming winter, the threat of human trafficking and starvation are only a few of the dangers facing refugee children living in what once was the Calais refugee camp in France.

RELATED:
Trump Administration to Spy on Immigrants' Social Media

One Calais-based group, the Refugee Youth Service, said the lack of money leads many young refugees to agree to exchange labor for guaranteed passage across the English Channel.

“They’ll say, ‘I’ll get you across and you don’t have to pay now but I do have a friend that you could work for in the U.K.’" said Michael McHugh, a member of the volunteer service said. "Children are becoming more desperate and susceptible. We’ve had many young people who we believed are in the U.K. but who we now can’t find."

After traveling miles and spending every cent of their savings, refugees are reaching the French border to await travel to the U.K., with desperation driving them to barter away their rights in an effort to reach their destination.

For those who have escaped war in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, Calais provides them with a base from which to try to cross to the U.K., the destination of choice for those who speak English or have family or friends in that country.

"What we’re becoming increasingly aware of is that young people are being exploited while on the move. They are being moved for the purpose of exploitation. The opportunities to cross the border have become more limited, and there’s been an increase in prices – so smugglers by default are becoming traffickers. The market has opened up for it,” McHugh said.

RELATED:
Bangladesh Levels Forest to Make Room for Myanmar Refugees

Since a cut to funding of an anti-trafficking service by the U.K. Home Office in April, the absence of state agencies and officers have only caused the issue to fester and grow, creating a vacuum which criminal organizations are readily filling.

In an effort to combat the surge of trafficking, Refugee Youth Service refers any adolescents suspected of being smuggled into the U.K. to a UK-based anti-trafficking agency. Since August, they have made 22 referrals, seven of which have been located safely.

“They use coercion through threats of violence or whatever it might be to then lead them to that exploitation in France on route and then when they arrive in the U.K. They offer to get them to the U.K. for free, but then on arrival they have to pay back X amount of money – we’re talking thousands or sometimes tens of thousands of dollars,” said Hannah Stott, program manager of a child trafficking advocacy agency, adding that others are exploited through cheap labor at car washes, construction or agriculture sites or forced into petty crime and drug runs.

Although the Calais camp was demolished one year ago, a squalid shantytown has arisen housing as many as 800 migrants, who have returned to the area and are sleeping in parks or forests.