Nearly 90,000 children sought asylum in Europe in 2015

source: The Independent
published: 3 May 2016

Nearly 90,000 unaccompanied children sought asylum in Europe in 2015, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa to reach a place of safety.

According to the latest EU data, 13 per cent of the applicants were younger than 14, travelling without their parents to the EU.

Statistics agency Eurostat said the number of unaccompanied minors has quadrupled since 2014.

EU leaders disagree on how to handle Europe’s migration crisis, with anti-immigration sentiment growing even in countries that traditionally supported helping people seek refuge.

3 April 201621 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Undercover police officers spy on children, and then demand privacy

source: The Canary
published: 23 March 2016

The Undercover Policing Inquiry, chaired by Lord Justice Pitchford, resumed this week with legal arguments being made by the police which, if implemented, would essentially mean most of the inquiry being held in secret.

Central to their position is a continuation of the policy of neither confirming nor denying (NCND) whether a person was an undercover officer.

However, whilst the lawyers for the police have been arguing that revealing the identities of officers would infringe their Article 8 right to privacy and family life, The Canary can reveal that police officers have been recording details of activists’ young children.

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17 September 201520 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Meet the British families who have opened their homes to asylum seekers

source: The Guardian
published: 7 September 2015

For the past 10 years, the Boaz Trust in Manchester has tried to find accommodation for destitute asylum seekers. Until very recently, the Christian charity often struggled to find enough households willing to take these most vulnerable of strangers into their homes.

All that changed last week with the harrowing photo of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose tiny body became the symbol of the biggest humanitarian crisis in Europe for decades when it washed up on a beach in Turkey.