Children face beatings, rape, death trying to reach Europe: UNICEF

Migrant children making the perilous journey to Europe to escape war and poverty face possible beatings, rape and forced labor in addition to risk of drowning in the Mediterranean, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said.
Minors account for a growing percentage of migrants and refugees, particularly those trying to reach Italy by sea from Libya, it said in a report, “Danger Every Step of the Way”.
Of the roughly 206,200 people who arrived in Europe by sea this year to June 4, one in three was a child, it said, citing figures from the UN refugee agency. “Every step of the journey is fraught with danger, all the more so for the nearly one in four children traveling without a parent or guardian,” UNICEF said.

UNICEF said that there was “strong evidence that criminal human trafficking networks were targeting the most vulnerable, in particular women and children. “Italian social workers claim that both boys and girls are sexually assaulted and forced into prostitution while in Libya, and that some of the girls were pregnant when they arrived in Italy, having been raped,” it said. The UN refugee agency has said the flow of people from Turkey to Greece has slowed hugely but dealing with migrants now stranded along the route remains a huge challenge.
UNICEF said many children had fallen between the cracks of overstretched asylum systems and their cases should be a priority. “All too often children are held behind bars – in detention facilities or in police custody – because of a lack of space in child protection centers and limited capacity for identifying alternative solutions,” it said.