Four Afghans, ostensibly minors, who arrived in the UK by boat were arrested after a girl was raped at the school where they were placed.
The Afghans arrived in the UK last year and are thought to have gone to the same school as the 15-year-old victim in Dover, a port city on the front lines of the Channel migrant crisis, according to The Times.
The Afghans are said to be aged between 13 and 16 and The Times reports that “[t]heir ages were not disputed by Home Office officials… nor the local council” — though the British authorities are far laxer than in many other European countries in this respect, not conducting scientific age tests and already embarrassed by multiple incidents in which migrant “children” significantly older than 18 and even 30 have had to be withdrawn from schools despite their claimed ages initially being approved.
Kent Police has confirmed that it is “investigating a report of a sexual offence involving a teenage girl and a teenage boy in Dover on the afternoon of Monday 6 February 2023,” and that four “boys” have been “arrested as part of the investigation” — and then “released on bail while investigations continue.”
This could turn out to be a risky move, given that British authorities have already lost hundreds of migrants who were able to flee from supposedly secure hotels, let alone other accommodations.
However, Britain is not the only European country struggling to accommodate migrant minors or experiencing safety concerns as a result, with one particularly egregious case in Germany involving a ten-year-old boy being raped by Afghan and Syrian classmates on a school trip.
Victims of such attacks do not always receive adequate support from authorities, according to a Swedish journalist, who reported that girls subjected to sexual harassment and assaults by migrants — many of whom are “not even kids” — are “called racists when they talk about their reality” by staff.