Behind Closed Doors:
A Storytelling Legal and Empirical Analysis of Human Trafficking Risks in Home Office Hotels Compared to Other Accommodation for Unaccompanied Children and Young People Seeking Asylum in the UK
By Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson, Tyler Valiquette, Ella Cockbain and Laura Durán
A recent and controversial practice development is the use of Home Office commissioned hotels to house unaccompanied children claiming asylum in the UK. From July 2021 to January 2024, seven Home Office hotels were established and finally decommissioned after the High Court in 2023 deemed their regular operation (rather than acting as ‘emergency’ accommodation) unlawful. There were concerning indications that the establishment of Home Office hotels for unaccompanied children may exacerbate risks of trafficking and various forms of exploitation. This was strengthened by media reporting over 440 missing episodes (some as young as 12 years old) among the 5,400 unaccompanied children housed from July 2021 to June 2023. It is from this background that our study explored the lived experiences and perceptions surrounding the trafficking and exploitation risks among unaccompanied children placed in Home Office hotels while seeking asylum in the UK. The legal and empirical storytelling research provides a comparative analysis of risk and protective factors for children seeking asylum between Home Office hotels and local authority care settings. The research findings guide us toward what measures can be taken to prevent trafficking and exploitation, how we can mitigate trafficking and exploitation risks associated with these children’s accommodation environments, and how to improve early intervention for unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the UK Key Findings 1. The empirical storytelling interviews and legal analysis showed that the use of Home Office hotel accommodation for unaccompanied children seeking asylum increased the risks of both trafficking and exploitation as well as re-trafficking risk for those children having been trafficked into the country. 2. The research findings link adultification and children being placed in adult accommodation for people seeking asylum, which remains a risk after the child hotels have closed. The empirical data revealed that children seeking asylum were not only placed in and trafficked from the children’s hotels, but an increasing number of children were reportedly incorrectly deemed as adults by the Home Office and thereby face similar and other associated risks (such as trauma, abuse, and exploitation by other adults) in adult hotels. 3. The research raised particular concerns about young unaccompanied Albanian people and trafficking. Our legal and empirical analysis drawing from professional experiences repeatedly indicated that Albanian children accommodated, and in particular Albanian boys, are especially vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation, as well as experiencing an increasingly precarious situation because of the relabelling of Albania as a ‘safe country’ for removal and Albanian boys as ‘criminals’ and ‘scapegoats’ in media as in the political discourse.
London: Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre , 2024. 62p.