More than 50 unaccompanied child asylum seekers remain missing after disappearing from Kent council care, out of a total of 345 who have vanished in recent years, according to data obtained by The Guardian.
Many of these children arrived in the UK after dangerous journeys across the Channel in small boats or hidden in lorries. Kent, as a major entry point, often becomes their first stop. The data suggests a significant number of the missing children may have fallen into the hands of traffickers.
Between 2021 and 2023, 132 children went missing from two Home Office-run hotels for child asylum seekers in Kent. Of those, 24 remain missing. Additionally, between 2020 and August 2025, 213 children disappeared from Kent County Council’s reception centres, with 32 still not found.
Albanian children made up the largest group to go missing. They accounted for 68 of the missing from the hotels (half of the total) and 65 from the reception centres. Afghan and Iranian children were the next most affected groups.
State protection failures
Esme Madill, from the Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit at Islington Law Centre, called the figures “shocking.”
She said: “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.”
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Madill stressed that for even one child to go missing should be seen as a failure by the state. “These numbers are in the hundreds,” she said. “They have not chosen to ‘go missing’. These children should be playing football in the park and preparing for their GCSEs, not servicing trafficking gangs in conditions we know include being chained to furniture, physically and sexually assaulted, and punished by being starved of food.”
Following a High Court ruling in December 2023, the routine use of hotels to house lone child asylum seekers was declared unlawful. As a result, Kent County Council agreed to expand its use of reception centres to provide safer accommodation. But even since that ruling, another 44 children have gone missing from these centres, with 10 still unaccounted for.
Official responses lacking
While Kent County Council and the Home Office have issued statements outlining their protocols and concern, critics argue these responses fall short of real accountability or effective prevention.
“Any child or young person missing from care is a serious concern and we take every effort to protect them,” a council spokesperson said. “Unaccompanied asylum-seeker children are vulnerable to being trafficked and exploited due to their separation from family and the circumstances of their journeys to the UK.”
According to the council, skilled social workers assess each child’s risk level and work with police and the Home Office to implement safeguarding protocols.
“KCC also refers children to mechanisms and services to help manage the risk of exploitation in the UK, including the National Referral Mechanism and the Independent Child Trafficking Guardian Service. Even then, it is challenging to prevent all children from going missing.”
A Home Office spokesperson echoed the concern, telling The Guardian: “The safety and welfare of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children remains a priority, and we take children going missing extremely seriously. We continue to regularly review our systems, sharing relevant information with local police forces and local authorities investigating the matter.”
However, the continued disappearances have led some observers to question the effectiveness of these procedures. While campaigners and legal advocates have not directly criticised the protocols themselves, the scale and persistence of the problem suggest that current measures may not be delivering adequate results.
The contrast between the stated commitments and the number of children still unaccounted for raises concerns about accountability, enforcement, and whether existing systems are truly protecting the most vulnerable.
