Thirty individuals and families have come forward offering to foster unaccompanied refugee children after an outreach from the Government Agency for Child Protection. “The response has been phenomenal, we couldn’t be happier” Bragi Guðbrandsson head of the agency proclaims, he goes on to assert that the news outlet of Morgunblaðið has been a great help in spreading the word.
The agency made an outreach this week looking for people willing to foster the lone children. There is a growing number of unaccompanied children reaching Europe, a particularly vulnerable group with methodical human trafficking rings operating and praying on children.
There are three fourteen to fifteen year old children waiting to be fostered by an Icelandic family at this time, they reached Iceland in December, two of them from Syria and one from Albania. Counting those three, in total seven unaccompanied children reached Iceland last year and everything points to the numbers increasing this year. “We have to expect that” Bragi goes on “ but nothing is assured, there are many hindrances facing children trying to reach Iceland. They need to reach the island by flight so first they must have some expenditure, they have to know of the countries existence in order to set the path to Iceland”, he goes on and names Sweden to compare to, “last year we only received seven individuals that belong to this group while Sweden received twenty five thousand”.
refugee children, the Government Agency for Child Protection, immigration, refugees, Foster care