Police in London have been investigating a child murder case for 4 years. The torso of a young black boy was found in the river Thames. Forensic examination, including the stomach contents, suggest that he was killed for ritual purposes and that he came from Nigeria.
As part of the investigation police asked the education authorities to tell them how many black boys between the ages of 4 and 7 had disappeared from school in the three month period leading up to the discovery of the body. The total came back at 300, one from the Caribbean and the rest from Africa. Only 2 have been traced.
The BBC report gives further details. For the most part there seems to be innocent reasons for these disappearence. Most seem to be down to parents arranging informal fostering with distant relatives.
There is also the suspicion that they may be being used for benefit fraud and then passed on to other people. There also seems to be a possibility that older children are being used as illegal house servants or in vice. The problems of unofficial fostering are not confined to African communities. Similar arrangements also occur within communities of recent immigrants from the Indian sub-continent, although these do tend to involve close “counsins” or “aunties”.
As well as the murder and fraud, there are obvious dangers of child abuse and neglect that these children are vulnerable to. By co-inidence there is a case of serious child abuse in trial at the moment involving just such an informal arrangement. A girl from Angola had been allegedly been accused of being a witch by the son of the woman looking after her. After enduring beatings she was reportedly put in a sack and only saved from being thrown into a canal when one of the group changed their mind.
Let’s hope that the desire “not to offend the sensibilities of the communities” does not get in the way of putting proper child protection measures in place.
