Hundreds of African boys missing in UK -report

[polycarp]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/crime_britain_africa_dc

LONDON (Reuters) - Police probing the murder of a boy whose torso was found in the River Thames say hundreds of African children have disappeared from London schools.

Police said there was nothing to suggest they had been murdered but they were almost impossible to trace due to a lack of immigration records.

Detectives launched their investigation after the torso of a boy was found in the Thames in September 2001. He is believed to have been the victim of a ritual killing after being brought to London from Nigeria.

Police asked London education authorities how many black boys aged four to seven had vanished from schools in the months leading up to his disappearance.

"Three hundred young boys between four and seven ... didn't return to school and are really lost into the system," Detective Chief Inspector Will O'Reilly told BBC Radio.

"It is a large figure, far more than we anticipated when we started this line of inquiry," he added.

Child welfare experts, fearing child trafficking could be rife, said the issue was complicated by the problem of private fostering -- the custom in many African communities of placing children with distant relatives.

Felicity Collier, chief executive of the British Association for Adopting and Fostering, called for tighter controls.

"We would not accept this as a society if these were white children," she said. "We have to have a law in this country that says private foster carers have to register."

[abbey]

I really dont think that this as sinister as it sounds.

Maybe they "Disappear" with their parents or guardians, because they are running from immigration officials.

[Bothwell]

Polycarp I heard this on BBC yesterday and was stunned. The policeman interviewed stressed that he did not suspect foul play but that these children were either being utilised for benefit fraud or being sold as domestic slaves, as if that was OK. William Wilberforce must be spinning in his grave.

[john8pies]

Surely instead of worrying about the problem after it happens, the sensible thing would be to tighten up immigration and asylum laws and procedures, so the officials know who is coming into the country, for how long, why they are coming here (contrary to international laws which state `.....shall stay in the FIRST `safe` country they enter) and WHERE they are staying. Then tighten up on laws to make it illegal for people to work without proper documentation, etc, and you wouldn`t get so much of this type of problem.