The problem with unacompanied minors and street children

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The intelligence report shows that the Stockholm police over the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 have registered a total of 1839 notifications in which the suspects belong to the group of "minors without permanent residence and without a guardian in Sweden". -It is between 500 and 600 boys who were criminally active in the Stockholm during this period, says police chief Patrick Ungsäter, who is head of the border police in the Stockholm Region. DN has previously reported on the growing number of unaccompanied minors from among others Morocco, Algeria and other countries in North Africa. Broken family relationships, live on the street and non-existent job prospects have brought them to Europe in the hope of a better life. Many have sought asylum in Sweden but only a few percent is deemed to have sufficient grounds. Home countries reluctance to receive the boys means that in practice they can not be removed. Patrick Ungsäter takes care to stress that the phenomenon has nothing to do with the current refugee crisis. - It is extremely important not to stigmatize all unaccompanied children, this is about a special group with special problems. According to a situation report which he commissioned, a lot of street boys are stuck in a criminal lifestyle and despite the fact that social services often manage to arrange a place on a HVB home (treatment center for adolescents) or a foster family, it is common for them to re-offend. In 2014, the surveyed boys were suspected, on average, for three crimes. Typical cases are thefts in shops, pickpocketing and burglary, and last year reported a total of 358 such cases. In the same year reported 30 robberies, 80 violent crimes and 143 drug offenses.

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Another article regarding the same situation in Italy:

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Khaled, 14, told us he started selling drugs to buy food. "I did it to avoid doing what other boys I know here are doing - having sex with Italian men. I've seen it with my own eyes. Boys - Egyptian, Tunisian and Moroccan - ask men for €50, even for €30." We were in the station with undercover cameras and he was keen to show us how it works. He went to a local cafe known for soliciting and chatted up a middle-aged man there. Most of the youngsters we met in Termini are Muslim, from conservative families. None admit to prostituting themselves for cash. They all point the finger at others but Lassad, a Tunisian-Italian volunteer, who spends several evenings a week at the station trying to talk the boys there out of a life of crime, told me that most of the boys we met there dabbled in petty theft, selling drugs for bigger gangs and occasional prostitution. "What do you expect?" he asked me. "How else do they pay back debts to people smugglers? How else do they eat? Some have nowhere to sleep. People round here know these boys are desperate and they prey on them here at the station. It's a market." Young Hamid has already been to jail once for selling drugs. He says he calls his mum back in Egypt every week and lies to her about how things are going. He sleeps in buses at night and shows us the water fountain he washes in. Didn't you imagine a better life for yourself here in Europe, I asked him. "We came here thinking we would go to school, have somewhere safe to sleep, find a job - but it's not like that. Some of us work for a pittance in the markets, some sell drugs, others sell themselves." "Once they've done it two or three times, they don't care anymore. If I'd known this I never would have come here."

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via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1iminfE