Council in Baby P scandal ‘loses’ 29 asylum children at risk from traffickers

Twenty-nine children seeking asylum in Britain have gone missing from the council at the centre of the Baby P scandal in the past three years, it emerged today.

Haringey council staff have "lost" the children since 2007. Although the whereabouts of most of the youngsters are known, two Romanian teenagers who were in social care have never been traced.

Child protection experts said that many of the vulnerable children are at risk of falling into the hands of child traffickers. The 29 children who went missing are 18 boys and 11 girls from Bulgaria, Eritrea, Albania, Iraq, Romania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Vietnam.

The two Romanian teenagers, aged 15 and 17, were in private foster care when they vanished. Their disappearance is now a police matter. A married couple, aged 19 and 20, also from Romania, were supposed to be under the council's care when they were lost. They turned up in their home country.

Lynne Chitty, an expert on child trafficking with 23 years' experience in social care, said: "We are talking about the most vulnerable young children who don't have choices. Sometimes young people will claim asylum in the UK and go missing extremely quickly or perhaps after several months. Vietnamese, Chinese and Afghan children are often brought into the country clandestinely and then picked up once they have landed. A lot of the African countries have problems with this too."

It is alleged that many of the children are told to claim asylum by child traffickers and are placed in local authority care, disappearing soon after.

Ms Chitty urged the Government to establish specialist accommodation for child asylum-seekers. She said: "We need to be taking fingerprints and videos of them so that straight away we stand a better chance of finding that young person."

Councillor Lorna Reith said: "We provide foster care and support but the youngsters have whatever liberty would be appropriate for their age, unless there are sound reasons for this not to be the case. Unfortunately, some go missing and we work very closely with the police to ensure the vast majority are traced and returned quickly and safely."

Seventeen-month-old Peter Connelly died on 3 August 2007 after months of abuse. A serious case review identified a series of failings with Haringey's social services department.