A 12-year-old refugee is still missing months after disappearing from a UK hotel and may have been lured away by a criminal gang.
The child, who arrived in Britain alone, is among a group of 447 young migrants first reported as having gone missing from hotels back in April, prompting a charity to say it fears “the worst might have happened”.
Those missing from hotels across the country also include 11 children aged 14 and 15.
Details of the child's disappearance emerged as part of legal action brought against Kent County Council by charity Every Child Protected Against Trafficking. The case saw a High Court judge rule the routine use of hotels to house lone migrant children was unlawful.
In the latest hearing on Monday, judge Sir Martin Chamberlain ordered Kent and the Home Office to work together to find appropriate accommodation for lone refugees. He was concerned they would blame each other over the issue, leading to an “impasse”, he said.
The judge has said 154 of the 447 refugee children remain missing and that neither “Kent CC nor the Home Secretary [Suella Braverman] knows where these children are, or whether they are safe or well”.
A Kent County Council representative told The National on Tuesday that 31 children who had been staying in hotels in the county are still missing, but that it had no knowledge of the 12-year-old.
Many of the other children the judge was referring to were not actually in the care of the council at the time they disappeared and had been placed in hotels outside its jurisdiction, the representative said.
The Home Office said data on the number of missing migrant children isn’t routinely published and would not say if it knew whether the child was safe as it doesn't comment in individual cases.
Ecpat chief executive Patricia Durr said she was “very concerned about what may have happened to those children”.
“Until we know exactly, we have to consider the worst might have happened, though we hope for the best,” she told The National.
'Badly failed'
Ms Durr said the charity believes that some of those children may have been trafficked into or within the UK.
“Some of them have been trafficked onwards in the UK,” she said.
“Until we find them, there has to be an urgency about their care. It’s unimaginable to arrive in another country by dangerous means and a lot of them have no idea where they are.
“Children are relying on adults to protect them and some of those adults are looking to exploit them. They need the very best of our protection and they’ve been badly failed.”
Kent County Council is itself bringing a case against the Home Secretary over the burden it faces in having to deal with migrant children, as the area in the UK where all small boats arrive. Brighton's council is bringing similar action.
Kent argues that it is struggling to meet the needs of newly arrived migrant children, as well as vulnerable young people in the county.
Over the past four weeks, it says, 489 newly arrived unaccompanied children have been referred to its children's services team, more than most other UK councils face in a year.
More than 21,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel so far this year, the latest figures show.
On Sunday, 113 people made the journey on two boats, according to Home Office data.
Lured by gangs
Of the children who have gone missing, most disappeared within 72 hours of arrival, according to data provided to parliament presented to the High Court.
“There is evidence that some have been persuaded to join gangs seeking to exploit them for criminal purposes,” said Sir Martin. “These children have been lost and endangered here, in the UK.”
The authorities in the UK are facing heavy criticism that they are failing to protect child asylum seekers.
Earlier this year, The National was told people-trafficking gangs have been using mobile phone trackers to find refugee children staying in UK hotels and lure them away.
Due to the increase in small boat crossings, the government has “no alternative” but to urgently use hotels to house unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, a Home Office representative said.
“The well-being of children and minors in our care is an absolute priority and there is 24/7 security at every hotel used to accommodate them,” the representative said.
“When a child goes missing, a multi-agency missing persons protocol is mobilised, alongside the police and local authorities, to establish their whereabouts and ensure they are safe.”
The Birkin bag is made by Hermès.
It is named after actress and singer Jane Birkin
Noone from Hermès will go on record to say how much a new Birkin costs, how long one would have to wait to get one, and how many bags are actually made each year.
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Gertrude Bell's life in focus
A feature film
At one point, two feature films were in the works, but only German director Werner Herzog’s project starring Nicole Kidman would be made. While there were high hopes he would do a worthy job of directing the biopic, when Queen of the Desert arrived in 2015 it was a disappointment. Critics panned the film, in which Herzog largely glossed over Bell’s political work in favour of her ill-fated romances.
A documentary
A project that did do justice to Bell arrived the next year: Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell. Drawing on more than 1,000 pieces of archival footage, 1,700 documents and 1,600 letters, the filmmakers painstakingly pieced together a compelling narrative that managed to convey both the depth of Bell’s experience and her tortured love life.
Books, letters and archives
Two biographies have been written about Bell, and both are worth reading: Georgina Howell’s 2006 book Queen of the Desert and Janet Wallach’s 1996 effort Desert Queen. Bell published several books documenting her travels and there are also several volumes of her letters, although they are hard to find in print. Original documents are housed at the Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle, which has an online catalogue.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
