Tory anti-refugee rhetoric ‘empowering’ trafficking gangs to exploit children, campaigners warn
A boy leaves the Sheffield Metropolitan Hotel in Blonk Street in August 2021
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THE government’s anti-refugee rhetoric is fuelling the exploitation by criminal gangs of lone child asylum-seekers, anti-trafficking campaigners have warned.
Traffickers are said to be using Tory threats of rounding up and deporting Albanian small boat arrivals to coerce children to go underground.
The disturbing claims come amid growing anger at the disappearance of 200 children, of whom 176 are Albanians, from hotels run by the Home Office.
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