|
Post by Hunny on Jun 17, 2013 16:25:05 GMT
Why are so many of the UK's missing teenagers Vietnamese? A major international summit on missing people is hoping to tackle exploitation and trafficking. In the UK, a disproportionate number of missing young people are of Vietnamese origin. Why?Each photograph on the Missing Kids UK website suggests a uniquely haunting tale, but when viewed together a distinct pattern emerges that is impossible to ignore. An overwhelming number of the young people are of east or south-east Asian descent, and on closer inspection most of those appear to be from just one country. Of 113 children and young people on the list - which doesn't include short term cases, or those excluded for reasons of safety - almost a fifth have Vietnamese names, despite that nation's diaspora making up less than 0.1% of the British population. Most are believed to have been trafficked into the UK by gangs, discovered by the police and taken into care. The children are apparently not running away from their captors, but often back to them - fleeing foster families and care homes in an attempt to repay heavy debts, and protect their families from reprisals in Vietnam. Van, a 15-year-old Vietnamese boy who appears on the site under a different name, was smuggled into the UK under a lorry and forced to work as a domestic servant for his traffickers. He was later put to work as a "gardener" in a number of cannabis factories across the country. The story is a familiar one for Harry Shapiro of Drugscope, who says that Vietnamese gangs control a major part of the cannabis growing industry in the UK. "It started with Vietnamese gangsters in Canada," he says. "They had no cultural link to cannabis, it just so happened that one group found a profitable niche and the business spread to the UK through the Vietnamese criminal community, probably around 2004." READ MORE...
|
|