Unconscionable and deserving punishment

As if Syrian refugees’ plight were not already unbearable, a grim dimension is added to it: the estimation that no less than 10,000 Syrian children who entered Europe are still unaccounted for, their whereabouts unknown.

According to the EU criminal intelligence agency Europol, these children disappeared after registering with state authorities upon entering European countries.

There are growing fears that these vulnerable children could have ended up victims of slave trade rackets or could be sexually exploited.

Europol’s Chief of Staff Brian Donald said last week that “it is not unreasonable to say that we’re looking at 10,000-plus children. Not all of them will be criminally exploited; some might have been passed on to family members. We just don’t know where they are, what they’re doing or whom they are with.”

Of the figure, 5,000 children disappeared in Italy alone. Some 1,000 are unaccounted for in Sweden.

While Europol says that not all of them may end up being criminally exploited, there is compelling evidence of “an entire infrastructure” that has been established over the last 18 months to exploit migrants, particularly children.

More worrisome is the fact that, according to the police agency, some organised gangs that help smuggle refugees into the EU are also involved in human trafficking and exploitation.

Knowing that, Europe has moved to arrest people involved in criminal activities surrounding the migrants, but obviously not enough is being done, or else so many children could not have just vanished in thin air.

European border authorities should not just allow the entry of unaccompanied children; they should open their eyes — and those of accompanying adults, if any — to the dangers awaiting them.

Once children enter a state, the responsibility for their safety and well-being falls squarely on that state.

Children’s rights, like every human being’s rights, but perhaps more so, in view of the vulnerability of this group, are sacrosanct.

They must not be ignored, forgotten or abused.

European countries where migrant children now live have an obligation to secure their safety, and should be held accountable for failing to do so.

It is unconscionable that young, scared and scarred people should be left at the mercy of criminals lacking scruples who take advantage of them.