850 children missing from Dutch asylum shelters; Over 51,000 missing kids in Europe
A massive 850 children have disappeared from Dutch asylum shelters between 2021 and 2023, Lost in Europe reported. The collective of investigative journalists investigated missing unaccompanied child asylum seekers in Europe. At least 51,433 children have disappeared in European countries in the past three years.
In the Netherlands 318 children went missing in 2021, 288 in 2022, and 244 last year. Most of the missing kids are teen boys. The youngest missing child is 3 years old. They disappeared from a Dutch shelter last year. In 2022, Dutch shelters lost track of a 4 and 8-year-old. Three 11-year-olds, three 12-year-olds, and eighteen 13-year-olds also went missing in our country in the past three years.
Children’s Ombudsman Margrite Kalverboer pointed out to NRC that 850 missing kids amount to one in eighteen unaccompanied kids disappearing in the Netherlands. She cited Article 22 from the United Nations International Convention on the Rights of the Child. It states that if a child flees to another country alone, that country must protect and help that child. The country is also obliged to help the child find their family.
Kalverboer pointed out that the Dutch authorities have not issued a single Amber Alert for any of the 850 missing children. “That characterizes the issue in a nutshell,” she said. “We do not protect these children who have fled to the Netherlands without their parents. We don’t look for them. We don’t help them find their parents. We offer them no physical pedagogical safety.”
According to her, the collective Netherlands sees these kids as “unaccompanied minor aliens” instead of children. “We see these children first and foremost as aliens. With all the associated risks,” Kalverboer said. “We do not see these children as our children. It is not in our collective consciousness to help them.” Kalverboer has raised concerns about how the Netherlands treats unaccompanied children multiple times, saying that they’re neglected in one report and calling conditions in the emergency shelters degrading in another.
According to Lost in Europe, only 20 of the 27 EU member states, plus Moldova, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland responded to their questions about missing children, and only 13 provided data. “The number of missing children may be even higher because the data is often inconsistent and incomplete, and many countries in Europe do not even collect data on missing unaccompanied minors,” the investigative journalists said.
Based on the available data, Italy and Austria have, by far, the most missing unaccompanied child asylum seekers with 22,899 and 20,077, respectively. Belgium is a distant third with 2,241 missing kids, followed by Germany (2,005), and Switzerland (1,227).
