Christian charities have spoken out against the Government's apparent scrapping of the Dubs amendment.
Lord Dubs, a Labour peer who was among those children who found safety from persecution by the Nazis after arriving in Britain on the Kindertransport, has said he was "bitterly disappointed and angry" after a pledge to allow child refugees to be reunited with their families in the UK was watered down in the revised European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, known as the Brexit Bill.
John Pontifex, head of press and information at Aid to the Church in Need (UK), told The Tablet: “From our experience at Aid to the Church in Need, seeing the situation on the ground in places like the Middle East where huge numbers of people are fleeing persecution, there is an urgent need to ensure robust legal protection for unaccompanied children and other young people arriving in Europe.
"Many of them have suffered trauma and are desperate for help and hope; this means they can be easily exploited with often terrible consequences. What these young people most dearly wish for is to be reunited with their families. The needs of these children must come front and centre in the government’s response to what has become an urgent issue.”
Christian Aid said Britain has a "moral responsibility to refugee children stranded in Europe".
Máiréad Collins, Christian Aid’s senior advocacy advisor on Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, said: “The 2016 Lord Dubs amendment came in response to the European refugee crisis which saw many children literally washed up on the beaches of Europe. It provided some hope that the protection of child refugees might be sustained by ensuring that children who were refugees in Europe could join relatives in the UK.
"The scrapping of this aspect of the bill is, in the words of Lord Dubs, ‘deeply depressing and deeply disappointing’.
“Christian Aid calls on the UK government to rethink this decision and to make good on this promise. After all, the Dubs amendment only led to the resettlement of 10 per cent of the promised number of Syrian refugee children before it was dropped.
“Britain has a moral responsibility to refugee children stranded in Europe, who could find safety and a home with relatives here in Britain.
“There is a grim irony in this decision being made a few days before Christmas, when 2 billion people around the world mark the birth of a Middle-Eastern child who became a refugee, and found sanctuary abroad.
“Christian Aid’s partners in Lebanon have been responding to the Syria refugee crisis since 2012, and we are painfully aware of the depths of desperation which has driven Syrian families from their homes to nearby countries and further afield to Europe.”
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