The number of Afghan children discovered being smuggled through Dover has risen dramatically in the last 12 months after a surge in violence between Taliban and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Kent County Council in southeast England picked up 265 smuggled Afghan children between April last year and this March — a 55 percent increase on the previous year. Close to half of all foreign children suspected of being trafficked or smuggled through Britain’s busiest ports now come from Afghanistan.
Kent’s reception facilities are full, mostly with Afghan boys fleeing violence, and one in five go missing after being taken into care. The authorities suspect they enter the hidden economy or fall into exploitation elsewhere in Britain.
Death threats from the Taliban and pressure to undertake suicide bombing missions are among the reasons for fleeing given by the Afghan children.
Speaking at a council reception center in rural Kent, Khalid, the 17-year-old son of a Taliban farmer killed two years ago, explained that his brother threatened to kill him if he did not join the Taliban too.
“I was forced to leave Afghanistan because of pressure from my brother and other members of the Taliban to join their forces and take part in suicide bombings,” he said. “I was against the idea, but I had no choice. I had to run away.”
The influx extends across southeast England, and the number of Afghan children discovered being smuggled through Suffolk’s ports has doubled since 2006. The figures, which were released under the UK’s Freedom of Information Act, count only smuggled children who were detected. Countless others have slipped into the country unnoticed.
Kent County Council’s chief executive, Peter Gilroy, believes the influx of Afghan boys is clear a symptom of growing instability after six years of war in Afghanistan. “You can guarantee that when the numbers of Afghan children arriving here go up it is to do with an escalation in hostilities,” he said.
According to figures due to be released by Human Rights Watch later this month, 1,633 civilians were killed in Afghanistan last year, up from 929 in 2006. As many as 950 were killed by the Taliban and 434 by Nato forces, including 321 in air strikes and 113 by ground forces, the organization said.
One in five of the Afghan children who come into Kent’s care disappear, although officials stress they often leave before the council has a chance to confirm that they are indeed children and not young adults. The reception center in leafy west Kent is not secured, and when reporters visited, a 13-year-old boy who had arrived from Peshawar, on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, only 24 hours earlier was spotted on a mobile phone, arousing suspicions that he was arranging to be picked up at the gate.
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