More than 50 lone child asylum seekers who disappeared soon after arriving in the UK and while in the care of the authorities are still missing, data obtained by The Guardian revealed.

Many of the missing children, who arrived in small boats or hidden in the backs of lorries and are thought to have been taken by traffickers, often first reach the UK in Kent. According to Freedom of Information data from Kent County Council (KCC), which is controlled by Reform UK, 345 children have been documented as going missing from their area, with 56 of those still missing.

Between 2021 and 2023, when the Home Office operated two hotels for children in Kent along with hotels in other areas, 132 children went missing from those two hotels, of which 108 were later found, with 24 still missing. Between 2020 and August 2025, 213 children went missing from the council’s reception centers for this group of children, with 182 found and 32 still missing.

In both cases, Albanian children were the largest group to go missing, making up half the total.

'Shocking figures'

“These figures are shocking. Behind each number is a frightened child who will already have experienced egregious human rights abuses before arriving in the UK seeking safety. When we represent children who have escaped after being trafficked whilst ‘missing’ in the UK, we see how their mental and physical health is permanently harmed by the abuse they experience during this time," Esme Madill, of the Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit at Islington Law Center, told The Guardian.

“For one child to go missing represents an abject failure of the state to protect the most fragile and abused in their care. These numbers are in the hundreds," she added.

She stated that more needs to be done to find the missing children, emphasizing that they have not chosen to disappear and should be living normal lives by playing in parks and preparing for their education instead of being exploited by trafficking gangs.

Child safeguarding should be prioritized

Patricia Durr, the chief executive of Every Child Protected Against Trafficking UK, said such data were always alarming, warning, "Once a child does go missing, the risk that they are being exploited increases significantly and they are certainly more vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking."

“Our research over many years shows just how [much] more at risk unaccompanied children are as they are separated from home, families, friends and communities and may have been trafficked into the UK, trafficked en route, or trafficked after arrival," Durr added.

Vulnerability to trafficking

She called on the government and public authorities to prioritize child safeguarding above all other considerations, to provide unaccompanied children with the necessary care and protection, and to ensure that every decision is made with the children's best interests as the primary focus.

“Any child or young person missing from care is a serious concern and we take every effort to protect them," a KCC spokesperson told The Guardian, adding, “Unaccompanied asylum seeker children are vulnerable to being trafficked and exploited due to their separation from family and circumstances of their journeys to the UK.”

The spokesperson stated that skilled social workers assess the children’s risk of being exploited, using safeguarding protocols in partnership with other agencies such as the police and the Home Office.

A Home Office spokesperson stated that the safety and welfare of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children remains a priority and that they take children going missing extremely seriously, adding that they continue to regularly review their systems for updates when this occurs and share relevant information with the local police forces and local authorities investigating the matter.