Safeguarding African
Children in the UK
By Debbie Ariyo
Will the forthcoming report into the death of Victoria Climbie come up with good ideas to help protect children or will it end up gathering dust on the shelves at the Department of Health. Debbie Ariyo looks at how the report could help change the lives of African children in the UK.
If this were to hold true, then the report would help
to bring respite to a lot of vulnerable children all over the country.
In particular, for other African children like Victoria Climbie, it would
mark a significant step forward in efforts to enhance their protection from
cruelty and abuse. However, considering that a number of other inquiries have
come and gone with no significant effects, it is quite easy to be cynical
of any “promises” made.
Having said that, it would
indeed be a shame if this report were to go the way of others before it.
I strongly believe that it could not have come at a more crucial time for
African children in this country – bearing in mind the plethora of issues
confronting them. This group of children and their families form a high proportion
of the socially excluded in the UK and are most likely to live in the poor,
most deprived areas. In addition to the poverty levels, experts working
in different fields of child protection and child welfare continue to point
to the vulnerability of African children and to failures within the system
to protect them from abuse. There are over 10,000 West African children
in private foster care. This is an area of childcare that is grossly
unmonitored by local authority social services, thereby leaving the children
unprotected and vulnerable to different forms of abuse and cruelty.
Victoria Climbie’s case has
really helped to highlight the failures within the system to ensure adequate
care and provision are in place to protect newly arrived children in the country.
At many of the country’s airports, a lot of the children coming in are able
to slip through the net, since there is no system for tracking their movements
after arrival. These children disappear into the streets of Britain, never
to be seen and heard of again. Increasingly also, local authorities in the
gateway areas are reporting cases of children coming to the country unaccompanied.
A lot of these children are African children, who end up in local authority
care. Some of them are known to disappear shortly after – as is the
case in West Sussex - to end up in exploitative child labour elsewhere.
In addition, there continue
to be reports from local authorities, especially in the London area, and anecdotal
evidence from community groups, about the increase in the number of African
children being exploited for domestic labour in the country. While most
of these are anecdotal in nature, there are increasing evidence and media
reports to support them.
The above snapshot, in short, points to the vulnerability
of African children and why this time round, the Laming report cannot afford
to fail them. But in particular, I strongly believe it is crucial for
the report to make strong recommendations for better safeguarding and protection
of children in a number of urgent areas.
Lord William Utting, in his 1997 report on Children Living Away From Home, identified Private Fostering as an area where children are not properly safeguarded. There are over 10,000 African children in private foster care – the highest of any group. Since registration of private foster carers is not compulsory, it hardly ever happens. Social services are therefore under no pressure to protect these children.
In our submission
to the Laming inquiry last year, we added our voice to the call by practitioners
for all private foster carers to be approved or registered with social services
before taking children into their care. We called for training in child
protection to be made compulsory. We expect the Laming report
to focus very closely on this issue with strong recommendations for registration
to be made compulsory and for local authorities to be more pro-active in safeguarding
children in private foster care and ensuring their overall inclusion in service
provision.
We are very much concerned about the ease at which children
can be trafficked into the country, and under the very nose of immigration
officials are able to pass through the system straight into the hands of potential
abusers. Children coming to the country unaccompanied can be picked up on
arrival by anyone with the minimum efforts to identify them and prove their
identities. Even under suspicion, with nothing tangible to hold on to,
immigration officials cannot do much, since suspected child abduction is a
police matter and not an immigration matter.
This gap that leaves children unprotected from possible
abuse and exploitation needs to be bridged immediately. In fact, much
of the system in place at our airports and seaports need to be completely
overhauled to help protect vulnerable children. A much more sophisticated
way of tracking new arrivals should be researched and implemented. This is
one clear area where greater efforts should be made to enhance joint-working
and communication between the different agencies having regular contact with
children – the police, social services, immigration, education and health
services. Whether the establishment of a new National Service on Child
Abuse will facilitate this joint-working remains to be seen, but at the very
least, a much more strengthened and improved system needs to be a priority
in order to effect the changes necessary. It would be interesting to
see how the Laming report addresses this important issue.
A recent positive step forward in the new Immigration Act is the recognition of trafficking as a criminal offence with up to 25 years in jail as punishment. This however only considers trafficking for sexual exploitation for now and does not include trafficking for other purposes like domestic labour. However, in recent weeks, media reports have focused a lot on children being brought in from African countries. While it is not clear the purposes for which these children are brought in – domestic labour and benefit fraud cannot be ruled out. My fear is that little effort will now be made by the police to deal with suspected traffickers of children for purposes other than prostitution, since there is less possibility of a conviction. In my view, all forms of child abuse and exploitation should be seen as criminal offences carrying enough weight for an appropriate conviction.
The safeguarding and protection of vulnerable children
at the local level requires a concerted effort and a strong system to effect
any positive changes. The role of the Area Child Protection Committees
is clearly very significant. However, it seems little recognition is
given to this. In most local authorities, ACPCs exist only in name with
no real power and no resources to push forward with their work. In my
view however, these structures have a great potential which need to be harnessed.
In particular, by bringing on board others within the community who work with
children and can provide general advice and background information on key
issues practitioners might not be aware of, the role of ACPCs can be strengthened
and made more effective. Community groups, for instance, have their own ways
of working successfully with families in crisis. They can provide advice
and enlightenment on key cultural issues affecting children which practitioners
might not be knowledgeable about. The Laming report should seek a strengthening
of these structures in order to ensure better protection for children.
A lot depends on the outcome of the Laming Inquiry
and its recommendations for government action to protect children. But
to be sincere, the onus is on government and its agencies to ensure the recommendations
in the report are implemented. We wait to see if this would happen.
Debbie
Ariyo is Director of Africans Unite Against Child Abuse – an organisation
promoting the welfare of African children in the UK