THE government’s anti-refugee rhetoric is fuelling the exploitation by criminal gangs of lone child asylum-seekers, anti-trafficking campaigners have warned.  

Traffickers are said to be using Tory threats of rounding up and deporting Albanian small boat arrivals to coerce children to go underground. 

The disturbing claims come amid growing anger at the disappearance of 200 children, of whom 176 are Albanians, from hotels run by the Home Office. 

Protests outside the Home Office building in London and Brighton and Hove council were planned today to demand action from the government to find the missing children. 

Reports claim that many have been “abducted” by trafficking gangs. 

Campaigners have accused the Home Office of ignoring repeated warnings that placing children in unsafe hotels in Brighton and other places, instead of in local authority care, left them at risk of being targeted by criminal networks. 

Social worker and anti-trafficking campaigner Lauren Starkey told the Morning Star that the “demonisation of Albanian arrivals by ministers” is also putting children at greater risk.

In January, Home Office minister Robert Jenrick pledged to round up, detain and deport the “vast majority” of Albanian small boat arrivals. 

Ms Starkey, who works with children at risk of being trafficked, said threats like these are being used by gangs as a method of control over their victims.

“Gangs are saying to people: ‘If you try to come forward and tell the police, you’re going to be one of those Albanians they’re trying to round up, and [they’ll] send you back to Albania. When they do, we’ll find you, we’ll kill you and we’ll kill your family’.”

Anti-trafficking work has always been about making victims who have been brainwashed by gangs feel safe enough to not return to them, she explained.

“But at the moment it is getting harder and harder, particularly with Albanian young people because they feel so targeted and traffickers convince them that they are the people who are truly on their side and the government is against them.” 

She added: “The rhetoric is really, really damaging and it actually empowers traffickers — that’s what all our young people are saying to us consistently.”

Lone Albanian children are among the highest at-risk groups for being trafficked due to the prominence of Albanian criminal gangs in Britain, she said.

“We know that the criminal exploitation of Albanian kids is a huge industry.”

Despite this, Home Secretary Suella Braverman has claimed that “many Albanians are abusing” the modern slavery system to avoid deportation.  

Campaigners argue that the government’s policies to “smash” these gangs by deterring people from making crossings, such as the Rwanda deal, are actually having the opposite effect by pushing terrified children into the hands of traffickers. 

“The fear of being removed to Rwanda can play a huge role in a child’s willingness to engage with public services rather than reconnecting with traffickers,” Laura Duran of the Every Child Protected Against Trafficking charity told the Star. 

“If the real purpose was to end some of these gangs operating, [the government] would tackle the root causes, which is the fact that there are no safe routes to enter the UK.” 

Campaigners are calling on the Home Office to end the practice of placing children in hotels, where they are said to be in “legal limbo.”  

Although nurses, social workers and security guards are present at hotels, there is no legal clarity on which authority is legally responsible for the children if they go missing. 

Humans for Rights Network founder Maddie Harris said the missing children scandal is part of a “wider picture of neglect” of child asylum-seekers by the government, which includes the placement of minors in adult hotels after being assessed as over 18. 

Last year the charity supported over 500 children who were wrongly placed in adult hotels. Some have also run away in fear for their safety, but were later found, she told the Star. 

“But also we do have clients who have contacted us for help, and then we never hear from them again — we don’t know if they have been trafficked,” she added. 

“We don’t know and that is what is so utterly terrifying about this — there is nobody responsible for these children.”

The Home Office was approached for comment.