Vocal Voices

I read this article in the Belfast Telegraph today and I despair of any form of responsibility from the governments or the press.

It starts out talking about the unaccompanied teenage boys being raped in the refugee camps. Then it goes ono to give proofs of medical knowledge and then talks about the 10,000 children who have "vanished" crossing the EU.


After that it censures the French for refusing to give the camp the status which would force France to take these people in and give them asylum and also talks about the French Gendarme unconcern with illegal rapes going on in an illegal camp. UNHCR can't come in because France would have to declare and emergency and then the UNHCR would force France to take them ALL.

What drives me mad is all these articles going on about how these 400 or 500 children have family in the UK and have a "right" to come to the UK. But the process is long and hard (as it should be), so they come hundreds of miles across Europe to try and blackmail the UK into taking them.

Tens of Thousands of unaccompanied children in the EU subject to rape and sexual exploitation by criminal gangs and up to 10,000 missing, all because the expectation has been set that if they just come we'll say yes and let them in.

NO and NO and NO. They were safe in Turkey. So what if it takes them 6 months or a year to do the paperwork to get them with their family in the UK or elsewhere in the EU.

It's criminal all right. Criminal that they are not sent back, directly from Greece, to the safe haven in Turkey, to do the correct paperwork and travel safely to the EU country they are entitled to go to. If they are not entitled, then they should stay where they are.

This has got to stop before it's 30,000 children missing either dead or enslaved as sex toys for anyone who will pay for it! Taking them in will only make it ten times worse. They must be taken from Calais and returned to their first point of entry in Turkey and tomorrow would not be soon enough. This is not our responsibility to do, it is the French responsibility to do.

The article is a mixture of conflation and confusion.

The people in the Jungle in Calais are not refugees, they are illegal immigrants. There is no requirement to check their status, they should be rounded up and sent back to their entry point to the EU. That is the job for France to do. If that means dumping them on beaches in Turkey or Libya, so be it.

They are also not in a refugee camp. They are a rag-bad of people camping out in the dunes near to Calais. They are there of their own free will, nobody forced them. Why the UNHCR was even mentioned is a mystery as no official camp exists.

The report also states that seven boys over a period of six months have been sexually abuse - that is the headline. Now let me say this: one is too many; but I have to ask what the figures are back in their home countries? I also wonder what the Gendarmerie could do about them. Does anybody think that they would be welcome in the dunes and also be able to carry out any meaningful investigations?

It then bangs on about an estimate of the number of children missing in Europe who may be vulnerable. The number is 10,000, but it is based on a number plucked out of the air. There may be fewer, but they may be many, many more.

I have read though this thread several times, trying hard to come to terms with what is going on.

This is a situation that has never happened before on anything like such a scale, and one that should be tackled by the whole of humanity, not just the nations currently affected. It is a totally inhuman event that has, probably, come about because modern I.T. now makes communication (for better or worse) so easy. It is likely that this is only the start of a trend, and the matter needs to be considered urgently by all nations, for heaven knows what the future will bring if a satisfactory method of dealing with the problem is not forthcoming. I could weep when I consider how some of the young children involved are suffering.

I don't know if it has never happened before. Possibly more that we just didn't know about it.

This kind of thing happens with Millions instead of hundreds of thousands, in Africa, every few years. Nobody cares and most of the press don't even report it...

How much did the press make of Boko Harum kidnapping 200 schoolgirls and then raping hundreds of them into suicide bombers??? Yes it was reported, but it was eventually dropped...

Aggers wrote:... modern I.T. now makes communication (for better or worse) so easy.

So very, very true. Just about everyone now has a computer in their pocket or bag.

The London riots evolved with real-time intelligence being passed on, not by the police, but by the rioters themselves. They were informing each other of where the police were and told to go do the business somewhere else. This type of communication was once the preserve of the police and armed forces, now everyone has it.

We need to also consider the new phenomenon of flashmobbing, where large groups of people congregate in no time at all. Gone are the days when concurrent protests in Newcastle, Birmingham, Bristol and London needed to be organised days or weeks in advance. They can now be done in hours, in any place, meaning the forces of law and order are on the back foot.

Throw in a bit of encryption and use of the dark net and it all becomes a huge problem for security.

Aggers wrote:I have read though this thread several times, trying hard to come to terms with what is going on.

This is a situation that has never happened before on anything like such a scale, and one that should be tackled by the whole of humanity, not just the nations currently affected. It is a totally inhuman event that has, probably, come about because modern I.T. now makes communication (for better or worse) so easy. It is likely that this is only the start of a trend, and the matter needs to be considered urgently by all nations, for heaven knows what the future will bring if a satisfactory method of dealing with the problem is not forthcoming. I could weep when I consider how some of the young children involved are suffering.

Our minds think alike Aggers. I CANNOT believe that anyone with an a breath of humanity could feel anything other than pain, heartfelt despair,and disgust he way these innocent's are and have been treated, with no more than platitudes from those in Power....I liken this to the Gas Chambers, millions of lives being sacrificed due to nations fighting for supremacy. How the hell can any one stand by and support these warmongers of all nations murdering men women children and babies in cold blood. . I would take in a Syrian "woman and two children" and I know others who would willingly do the same.

Kate, there was no reason for them to leave Turkey.

Some left themselves on a "hope" of better treatment, only to vanish. Others were sent by their families to pull on our heartstrings and pave the way for their families to enter.

I have a lot of humanity. But I won't have mine abused by people who care nothing for us or our society but just want to use us.

I watched a program last night on the BBC about the journey of these refuges
Small children with frostbite of there feet and hypothermia
Poor mites they j just walk and walk
What I c ant understand is why is it only now British naval ships are trying to stop them reaching Greece it should have been at the very start
They have no future in Europe or the UK
Unless they are very lucky

Suff wrote:I don't know if it has never happened before. Possibly more that we just didn't know about it.

This kind of thing happens with Millions instead of hundreds of thousands, in Africa, every few years. Nobody cares and most of the press don't even report it...

How much did the press make of Boko Harum kidnapping 200 schoolgirls and then raping hundreds of them into suicide bombers??? Yes it was reported, but it was eventually dropped...

I wrote about the horrors thos poor girls at the time Suff.

KateLM wrote:I wrote about the horrors thos poor girls at the time Suff.

I know you did Kate and you kept up interest a lot longer than the press did.

Sometimes I think Napalm was made for a reason and Boko Haram fall into that reason...