Will Minister for "Children" Fitzgerald investigate the 450+ missing refugee kids?

dekarnys2

STILL NO INVESTIGATION INTO THE 450+ MISSING REFUGEE KIDS!

HUSH HUSH GOES THE GARDA!
SHUSH SHUSH GOES THE HSE!
The silence concerning missing refugee children has been growing, and growing and growing and growing!
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At last someone in the Irish Times is allowed to write about the missing refugee children!
What happened to all the missing foreign children - The Irish Times - Sat, Feb 27, 2010
The Irish Times - Saturday, February 27, 2010
What happened to all the missing foreign children?

THERE IS something about a photograph. When you don’t know someone personally, a photograph makes the person real and vivid in a way no amount of verbal description can. When the person has previously just been just a statistic, the impact is infinitely greater, writes BREDA O'BRIEN
Although I have often written about the scandalous numbers of children who have gone missing while in the care of the Health Service Executive, somehow I had never visited the http://ie.missingkids.com website. When I finally did so last week, I found myself stunned that there is not a daily outcry to find these young people.
Are we, as Phil Garland, HSE assistant national director for children and families, suggested, simply racist? The first thing that struck me was the huge amount of foreign faces, although it is a website for all missing children.
Among the girls, many are Chinese or African. Two in particular caught my attention – Xiao Ming Chen, aged 15, with her heavy fringe, fragile shoulders and tense, pretty face, and Caroline Njoki from Kenya, aged 13, with her huge, sombre eyes.
As a second level teacher, they remind me of pupils. I can only imagine the resources that would be marshalled and the blanket media coverage if Irish children whom I teach went missing. Between 2000 and 2009 a total of 501 migrant children went missing from HSE care. Only 67 have been successfully traced.
There are 434 missing children, and we go about our daily business as if nothing of any major import has happened.
A November 2009 Report of the Office of the Children’s Ombudsman on separated children highlighted the stark contrast between how Irish and asylum-seeking children are treated. From January to May 2009, apart from children seeking asylum, 53 other children went missing from HSE care.
Of these, only two remain missing, and even here, contact was made with them. From January to May 2009, 27 asylum-seeking children went missing, and at the time of the report’s publication, only two were accounted for. (Seven more have since been traced.)
In a bitter irony, an asylum-seeking child who was assisting the ombudsman’s office with its research went missing from school. By the time of publication of the report, her picture had not appeared on the missing children’s website, and there was no publicity about the case.
It is more than puzzling that, given there are 434 missing children, my own search of ie.missingkids.com for the last 10 years showed up records for only 48 girls and 90 boys. Why are the others not on the website?
One Opposition TD, Denis Naughten of Fine Gael, has been on a mission for some time to raise awareness of the plight of these young people. When he spoke to me during the week, he confirmed that the numbers of children disappearing dropped dramatically towards the end of last year.
As far as Naughten can ascertain, five children disappeared in September, of whom three were traced. None disappeared in October and November, and one in December. (The child in December was traced and returned to care.) He finds it difficult even to get facts and figures from the HSE. His requests for figures for January have not, to date, even been acknowledged.
He went on to say that while it is good that the numbers are dropping, what about the more than 400 still unaccounted for? He suggests imagining an Irish teenager missing in, say, Russia, with no knowledge of the language or culture, and vulnerable to every type of exploitation.
A statement from the HSE said that the issue of separated children who go missing from care was complex, and was sometimes simplified and sensationalised.
“It has been unsubstantiated that any of the children who go missing from HSE care have been trafficked.” So where are they then?
When we look to our nearest neighbour, Britain, the assertion that those alleging that these children may have been trafficked are just simplifying and sensationalising the issue begins to sound hollow.
The Guardian newspaper has carried out a number of investigations of children who went missing very quickly from state care, and in particular, Chinese children. The newspaper’s reporters have even travelled to China, to the province of Fujian, from where many of the children who end up in Britain originate.
A very disturbing picture emerges. Communities club together to fund a person to go abroad, in the expectation that the person will thrive and send money home regularly. A Chinese researcher posing as a would-be migrant was told that if she could raise £15,000, getting her into Britain by a circuitous route would be no problem.
What about her 12-year-old sister, the researcher asked? No problem. They send lots of children, and “it is 100 per cent safe”. Far from being safe, the Guardian uncovered ample evidence that many Chinese girls end up in prostitution.
Another Chinese woman working on behalf of the Guardian answered an advertisement for a housekeeper in a brothel, and discovered young, exhausted and utterly demoralised young Chinese women there who had been trafficked. They were too ashamed to tell their families what had happened. “You grit your teeth and endure the pain,” one said.
Is the same happening in Ireland? Are others in virtual slavery, working in homes and businesses? No doubt many have been moved out of Ireland, as it is recognised that Ireland is seen as an EU entry point.
It is important to acknowledge progress, such as the gradual closure of unsuitable hostels, and a reduction in the numbers who simply walk out of HSE care, never to be seen again.
However, what about finding the children missing to date? Is it not about time the Irish public joined Denis Naughten and other children’s rights advocates in the demand for answers?
bobrien@irishtimes.ie
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Also The Garda have concealed the true figures for missing Irish residents since the early 1990s!
However, finally - the truth creeps slowly!
The true figure for missing persons in Ireland could be 675!

Kilkenny People 23rd October 1998 states that over 90+ people were missing at that time BUT the GARDA had only the missing 6 women from Leinster on their website!
The people of Ireland HAVE TO WAKE UP to the reality that the Irish Police have been covering up the TRUE FIGURES FOR THE IRISH MISSING!
I call on the politicians to call for an inquiry into these matters!
If they dont they will one day be held to account by the people of Ireland for their cowardice and abrogation of their duties as public representatives!
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coylemj

You resurrected a 5 year old thread over on After Hours and here you're quoting from a 13 year old newspaper article and you've plastered your post with banner headlines, what's your point?

Illegal immigrants often use children as pawns in their quest to get accepted as genuine asylum seekers. On many occasions when they're refused and deported they abandon their children, please don't start blaming the the Irish people for this scandal.

dekarnys2

"Illegal often use children in their quests to get accepted as genuine asylum seekers"
Wheres your evidence for this claim?

"when theyre refused they abandon their children"!

Unfortunately noone would believe that anyone would abandon their own children - and repeat the action in hundreds of cases!

Ive resurrected old newspaper articles -

Claims made by Emma Browne formerly of Village Magazine first exposed the fact that many children were going missing and the HSE and GARDA in her own words were/are indifferent to the plight of the children!
Only for Emma Browne and other journalists in Village noone in Ireland would know hundreds of kids are missing!

I repeat the question by Breda OBrien

WHERES THE MISSING REFUGEE KIDS NOW?

They are not cattle or sheep but going by your thread,
you show as little concern for missing kids as the HSE and Garda have shown in the past!

Maybe if they were cattle missing - there would be a hue and cry in every newspaper in this sorry country!