As thousands of refugee children have disappeared in Germany, the German children’s fund office (Deutsche Kinderhilfswerk) urged the German government to take concrete steps in searching for refugee children. Germany registered 60,000 unaccompanied child refugees with 4,750 listed as missing in January. Since then, the number of missing refugee children has increased in recent months, hitting 6,000. According to statistics from the country’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), 945 children aged 13 and under, and 5,502 children between the ages of 14 and 17 have already been registered as missing.
While demanding the formation of a central registration system for the protection of missing refugee children, the number of missing refugee children in that country aged 13 and younger is alarming, according to Deutsche Kinderhilfswerk. The organization emphasized that the number of missing refugee youth has been gradually declining, but the number of missing refugee children has increased in recent months. It also noted that the missing refugee children face the danger of falling into the hands of criminal organizations, and that most of the refugee children who went to Europe did not have any relatives there.
German police officers were under the obligation “to pay the utmost attention to every missing child, whether they come from Germany or another country.” The cooperation of police officers at the European level should also be intensified, the organization also noted.
The problem of missing children and adolescents has long been known by German authorities. It is always pointed out by the authorities that, in some cases, multiple registrations could be the cause, or the unaccompanied refugees might have tried to move to other European countries to find their relatives.
Source: https://www.dailysabah.com/europe/2017/07/06/germany-fails-to-protect-al…
