UK should take 3,000 more Syrian refugee children, MPs urge

The British government should demonstrate its commitment to helping the most vulnerable victims of the Syrian conflict by resettling 3,000 unaccompanied children in addition to the 20,000 refugees it has already agreed to take in, a group of MPs has suggested.

Although the international development committee (IDC) praises the government for the “exemplary standard” it has set other countries by allocating more than £1.1bn to tackle the crisis, it is urging the UK to accept Save the Children’s recommendation for an increase in the number of young refugees being offered resettlement.In its report on the Syrian refugee crisis, published on Tuesday, the committee warns that unaccompanied young refugees risk falling victim to traffickers and finding themselves forced into prostitution, child labour or the drugs trade.

It says: “We would welcome a decision by the government in favour of resettling 3,000 unaccompanied children, as recommended by Save the Children, and in addition to the current commitment to resettle 20,000 refugees from the region.”

Stephen Twigg, the chair of the IDC, said the proposal offered the government another concrete way of helping some of those most affected by almost five years of civil war in Syria. 

“We think the government needs to get on with it and make a decision,” he said. “By accepting the recommendations of Save the Children, the government would make a very powerful point about how seriously we as a country take the plight of the children, whether they are in Syria itself, the surrounding countries or those who have made the perilous journey to Europe.”

Given the huge numbers of refugees taken in by Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, added Twigg, “I don’t think it’s a lot to ask to say in addition to the 20,000 the prime minister has pledged to resettle, we will also take 3,000 unaccompanied children from Europe”.

While the report praises the Department for International Development (DfID) for its commitment to tackling the largest humanitarian emergency since the second world war, it calls on the government to make sure that other rich nations follow suit.

It points to research by Oxfam that suggests that the UK is the only G7 country to have contributed its “fair share” of funding: “Whilst the UK has generously contributed 229% of its fair share, France, for example, has contributed 22%, Japan 24% and Italy 21%.”

The problem, according to the committee, is that unlike the UK and a handful of others, most wealthy countries have still not made good on the 46-year-old pledge to spend 0.7% of their gross national income on foreign aid.

With the global appeal for Syria for 2015 only 53% funded, the IDC says it is “deeply concerned about the lack of financial support from the UK’s partners, particularly European countries and members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC)”.