News round up: Lost 400 children may have been trafficked

Lost 400 children may have been trafficked into sex or drugs trade

More than 400 foreign children, many suspected of being trafficked into the sex or drug trade in Britain, have gone missing from local authority care.

Children from Africa, Asia and eastern Europe have disappeared from safe houses and foster homes around the country’s biggest ports and airports, figures released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act have revealed.

The missing children include at least 87 Chinese who disappeared from care around Heathrow and Gatwick and 68 from countries including Afghanistan, Albania and India who went missing from the care of Kent county council, which is responsible for protecting children trafficked through Dover and Folkestone.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Women’s charities woefully under-funded, warns report

Violence against women is costing British society £40bn a year yet charities working to provide refuge and aid to some of the most vulnerable people in society are woefully under-funded, a leading charity warns today.

Organisations working to tackle different types of violence against women, including sexual violence, domestic violence, honour crimes, forced marriage and trafficking, are crippled by a lack of financial support, a report by New Philanthropy Capital concludes
Read more on this story in The Independent

Fears grow for disabled man

Concerns were growing last night for the safety of an extremely vulnerable disabled man after the discovery of his mother’s body. The pair had disappeared three days earlier.

Detectives are concerned for the wellbeing of James Hughes, 22, who has the mental age of a toddler and needs round-the-clock care for a number of other health problems, including epilepsy.

The body of Heather Wardle, 39, a mother of four, was discovered in woodlands five minutes’ walk from their home in Redditch, Worcestershire, about 6pm on Monday.
Read more on this story in The Times

Jersey abuse probe finds bones and teeth

A team of ten forensic archaeologists, working on the police investigation into historic child abuse in Jersey, said yesterday that they had found bone fragments and teeth at the former Haut de la Garenne children’s home. Police said they believed that the milk teeth probably came from a 5-year-old child. The team is now concentrating on two cellar rooms.

A spokeswoman said: “The teeth could have come from the same child although further tests will be necessary to try and ascertain if that is the case, and how the teeth might have come to be there.”
Read more on this story in The Times

£1bn package would end tax row, say rebels

The architect of Labour’s 10p tax rebellion said yesterday that ministers must provide up to £1bn in compensation for those affected by the changes before the local elections next week, if they are to defuse the row.

Insisting he did not want to bring the government to its knees, the former minister for welfare reform Frank Field said the Treasury had £1.2bn in unclaimed working tax credits with which it could fund the package, a move that would take the sting out of the issue for voters.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Boarding schools for broken home pupils

Inner-city state schools are preparing to open a new generation of boarding houses for pupils, it emerged yesterday.

A series of semi-independent academy schools, most in poor urban areas, are considering providing on-site accommodation as part of the first major expansion of state boarding for decades.

The facilities would be aimed at children from service families, young people with parents working abroad and pupils from broken homes.