An NGO estimate suggests that around 25.000 young people have disappeared as soon as they crossed the border into Europe. According to Child Focus, there are 322 worrying disappearances of unaccompanied minors in Brussels every year. These unaccompanied foreign minors who are not easily accessible and fearful of support structures are prey for criminal organizations.

The Federal Judicial Police, who investigated and analyzed the phenomenon, explains that criminal organisations lure children from North Africa and Afghanistan with the promise of a life of luxury. The children end up in squats and are forced to sell drugs or commit other crimes. They are kept under control with violence and even threatened with rape videos. It concerns North African – mainly Moroccan and Algerian – boys between 14 and 17 years old who do not apply for asylum and are therefore completely invisible to the authorities, as well as Afghan unaccompanied minors who apply for asylum and end up in a reception centre but are then forced to repay the debt contracted with smugglers. 

The Federal Judicial Police wants to raise awareness about this phenomenon and urges to do something about it. When the children are caught, they are usually treated as perpetrators, not as victims. The real perpetrators remain under the radar. Social organisations and the Police must succeed in working more closely together to persuade victims to enter a protection system.

For further details, please read the following press releases (in English, Dutch and French).