Unaccompanied Child Refugees

The 20,000 figure was given in 2015 by the Government and is for the Syrian Refugees Vulnerable Persons Scheme which is nationwide. You can go onto your local authority’s website and see how many your area has committed to take. One of the rules is that the refugees have to come from one of the official camps. I think that generally it’s families that are in this scheme

One of the Wiltshire campaigners spoke to 94 year old Hella Hewison, a former Kindertransport child refugee who told her:

"I came to this country on Kindertransport aged 14 ½ and if I’d been left in Germany I would certainly have been murdered, like my parents were, by the Nazis. This scheme saved my life and I hope other people will be as kind to children in need today."

I am in favour of helping unaccompanied refugee children (who wouldn't be). However, I do feel we should be able to prove a refugee is a child. If a dental check would do this then I don't see why it shouldn't be carried out. For every adult pretending to be a child a genuine child in need is left behind. Obviously, very small children would not need to be subjected to the check.

I dare say Lois, that sadly people do take advantage. Without facts and statistics we are reliant on hearsay and those with their own agenda.

We must bring 10,000 refugee children to safety

www.facebook.com/HelpRefugeesUK/videos/369746757077634/UzpfSTY4MzI4NzA2NDoxMDE1NzM1MTMwNDgxMjA2NQ/

Watch former child refugee Lord Alf Dubbs pleading for us to give homes to 10,000 children over ten years.

GillT57 I think you misunderstood my post, I do not blame migrants or refugees for the UKs infrastructure problems.

I just think that if these were addressed first the UK would be in a position to help those in need, which includes taking in orphan children from war torn countries.

I have seen first hand 2 young Syrian teenage boys taken into our friends home, supported through sixth form education, they needed an awful lot of help with their mental and physical health, which they received, both are now at UK Universities.

Loislovesstewie it would be interesting to hear from someone who is involved first hand, without disclosing any confidences of course. As for you Jennifereccles, your acceptance of the poison dripped by the Daily Express and the Daily Mail says a lot. Like every area of society, there will be some who take advantage, some who do not take the advantages offered, it is unfair to classify all of a group as being the same. The shortages in housing, health care, GP appointments are not due to a few migrants, they are due to cuts in government funding and I find it hard to understand why the very people who moan about poor public services/blame the migrants for the shortages are very often the same people who vote for more of it by returning a Tory government.

Elvive, no not in refugee settlement. I can't really tell you about my former employment but I did meet refugees and as I have said , I realised that where there is a chance for exploiting the rules it definitely takes place. I did consider not commenting on this thread but felt I had to point out that sometimes it is possible to be too trusting , naive and swayed by news items etc. We like to be thought of as kind , helpful and moral which can itself cause its own issues.

"Welcoming outsiders is not an extra, or simply a charitable idea, it is in our political DNA." That was the message Bishop Andrew gave to Wiltshire councillors debating a motion committing the Council to provide homes for unaccompanied refugee children. Helping refugee children is in our DNA.

Bishop Andrew joined with Bishop Nicholas and other leaders of faith traditions across the county of Wiltshire to support the 'Safe Passage' campaign that encourages each local authority in the country to welcome ten refugee children a year for ten years.

If successful about 10,000 children would be provided with a safe route from war-torn Syria to secure homes in the United Kingdom. The campaign is inspired by Lord Dubs who was one of 10,000 children saved by the Kindertransport trains from Germany eighty years ago.

After the debate and hearing the speakers, councillors voted unanimously to adopt the 'Lord Dubs' scheme.....

...They also called on Wiltshire Council to support the national ‘Our Turn’ campaign by pledging to resettle at least ten vulnerable refugee children in Wiltshire per year for ten years from 2020. The pledges will be wholly dependent on the scheme being fully funded by central government, and councils up and down the country have already pledged 850 places.

Speaking at the meeting, which was also attended by the Revd Dr Rob Thomas, Rector of Trowbridge St James and Keevil Benefice, Bishop Andrew said: "The parish system was the building block of English local government for over a thousand years. While ‘parochial’ has come to mean insularity and narrowness, its original meaning of ‘those beyond our walls’ could not be more in need of recovery. In our time and in our county, we must grow communities that can be small without being narrow; that offer settlement to those who don’t belong."

www.salisbury.anglican.org/news/helping-refugee-children-is-in-our-dna

Lois, do you work in the field of refugee settlement? It would be so interesting to hear first hand experience.

JE, have you met any of these " scheming parents" first hand?

EV, if you cant differentiate between 20 and 20,000 that's not great really.Also How do you know Liverpool and the Wirral are welcoming a disproportionate amount of refugees and what skills and talents do you think they will bring with them?

There are a lot of British born children who cannot find foster parents or adoptees.

We are repeatedly told on various threads here on GN that we have people using food banks, not enough social housing, NHS bed crisis, GPS and Dental Practices not taking on any more patients.

Maybe we should put our own house in order first?

I think it's a mixture really. The problem is that there will always be those who exploit a situation to their own advantage. It doesn't matter what we are talking about , whether it's benefit fraud, immigration rules, cheating the tax man, there is always somebody who will bend the rules. I have become more cynical over the years, as I have seen so many people who are prepared to be untruthful . Sad but true!

There was a clip on the news a couple of years ago when we all saw so called child refugees walking along being helped to leave the Calais camp and be taken to UK . The men were so clearly men and not children. Doesn't anyone else remember this? Much later one of those children turned out to be 39.
They are not children, they are mostly young men or
older teens. I think they are mostly young men and then once settled they can send for their families to join them.

Yet we have the least funds. Though it goes without saying about people in the North doesn't it ?

It doesn't alter the fact that we in Wirral and Merseyside have taken the most refugees !

I’m sorry Lois, From the time I open the page until the time I got around to writing my comment your second comment hadn’t popped up. So I do understand your point better. However, do you feel that people are deliberately lying about their age or do they genuinely not know?

GillT57 Sajid Javid had pledged another 10,000 entries into the UK if he'd been voted as PM-----which means to me that his promise will remain whoever gets in, so the figures still don't ring true.

Yes, I beg your pardon on the 20,000 in Chester as it is the UK as a whole. Neverthless, they have a migration programme which allows Syrian displacements to settle in the area. Does such a programme exist anywhere else ?

If you read my post, I have said that often we are talking about people who claim to be 16 or 17 , which makes them children for the purposes of being unaccompanied minors. They may well be over 18 , both for the reasons I have given and also because some may be untruthful. I think you have ,however, raised the point that when we think about unaccompanied children most of us think that we are talking about very young children who should not be abandoned. A lot of the time the children are really teens/young adults.

Thanks GillT57. In my area we only take families as well.

I think we need to get the wording right here.

These are not migrants children ( or otherwise as others have pointed out), but illegal immigrants, sent by scheming parents in the hope that European countries (and specifically us of course) will take them in.

Then of course once the 'children' are in, the parents would feel that they would have a good chance of getting in here too.

And so it goes on with our country getting more and more overcrowded year after year.

@lois, how do you confuse a10 yr old from an adult?!

In 2015 the Government pledged to take in 20, 000 refugees from 2015-2020. We have taken in 16,000 so far and the Home Secretary has pledged 5,000 more next year. This is for the whole country not Chester. I’m not saying they are distributed equally or fairly across the country but there is no way Chester has pledged to 20, 000

Ellenvannin just found this Councillors have agreed that up to 20 refugee families will be resettled in the borough over a five-year period, as part of a wider commitment for the Cheshire sub-region as a whole The 20,000 figure is for the UK as a whole I believe.

Could you please give us a link or reference to substantiate your claim EllanVannin?

Liverpool has probably taken in more refugees than any other area in the country------but no extra funding to back them up. Why do you think we're known as the poor relations of this country ? It's criminal !