ETHIOPIA: A UN report details how unaccompanied children are being smuggled from Somalia into Europe, writes Declan Walsh, in Nairobi.
Desperate Somali parents are paying up to $10,000 to have their children smuggled into Europe, where some are abandoned in airport lounges, railway stations or phone booths, according to a new United Nations report.
A sophisticated and lucrative smuggling ring helps the unaccompanied children slip past heightened immigration controls mostly in Britain, the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries. Their parents send them to escape the violent destitution of Somalia, a country ruined by over a decade of vicious civil war.
But all many find is loneliness, exploitation and - in the worst cases - a life of prostitution and crime, according to A Gap in their Hearts, a report by IRIN, the UN information service.
The racket highlights the sharp growth of child smuggling into Europe. The number of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum leaped from 12,000 in 1998 to over 16,000 in 2000, according to the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR.
In Somalia, unscrupulous smugglers use a variety of ruses to slip their charges past western immigration controls.
The children, who are often confused and frightened, are coached with fake stories and given false names.
Sometimes the smugglers "hire" legitimate passports from other Somalis with British nationality at a cost of £500 per trip - occasionally resulting in boys being disguised as girls.
Before the September 11 attacks, up to 250 children used to leave the capital, Mogadishu, every month. That number has since fallen to between 40 and 60, and smuggling fees have doubled from $3,500 a head to $7,000 while older children, who are considered more risky, cost $10,000.
Parents sell their houses and move in with relatives to pay the exorbitant fees. "Each person here would sell their soul to get a visa," said one Somali humanitarian worker.
"They would sell their house, their camels, their possessions, their gold." The practice has become an everyday topic of conversation, acquiring a local name, hambaar,, which means "to ride piggyback".
Once they arrive in the target country, the smugglers may hand the children to Somali relatives. If there are none, they simply drop them in a public place.
Ilhan, a Somali woman in Sweden, said a strange man brought her through immigration seven years ago.
"When I got out of the plane he told me sit here and I'll be back'," she said. Several hours later she was discovered by Swedish police, who brought her to a refugee centre.
A Somali with a British passport who smuggles children told researchers that failure brings a second attempt. "We have a 60 per cent success rate on the first try, and 100 per cent on the second." Crooked western officials are also involved.
Former immigration officials operate "consultancies" that sell insider information that helps to circumvent controls. Some Somali smugglers have claimed that British officials sold them unused passports.
"This is not a one-way trade. European officials are also involved, not just Somali smugglers," said the report's author, Ms Lucy Hannan.
Parents send their children to the West for good schooling and, ultimately, to send money back home. At the outset of the war in 1991, boys were sent to avoid the fighting, now many families prefer girls, who are seen as more reliable.
"My children are my assets," said one mother who had sent four children to Sweden and the UK.
But the pressures of an alien, sometimes hostile, environment means that dream often goes unrealised. Ilhan, who entered Sweden with 15 other children in 1995, said just two completed their education.
"Some got pregnant, some became alcoholics, some are on drugs and some ended up in juvenile centres," she said.
There are suspicions that some children at the Carlslund immigration centre in Sweden have been used for child pornography and prostitution.
Those Somali immigrants who adapt to western society may find themselves rejected by their conservative elders. Somali is a strictly Muslim country with rigid social structures centred on clan loyalty.
"It's very psychological," said Mr Hussein Hassan in London. "Do you see a Somali in the mirror or an English man?"
The report's author, Ms Hannan, said she hoped the report would show that the solution to illegal immigration will come through increased development aid, particularly in education, and not through erecting more barriers in the receiving countries.