Forty children who disappeared from UK asylum hotels remained missing, a parliamentary report published on Thursday, 27 August 2026 found, with two of them believed to be under 18.
The figure came from the joint committee on human rights, a cross-party body of MPs and peers, in a report on how the social care system was failing young adults, as reported by The Guardian.
In 2023, more than 440 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children went missing from Home Office hotels, some reportedly as young as 12.
The High Court ruled the same year that housing lone child asylum seekers in hotels was unlawful.
What the UK asylum hotels missing children figures showed
Helen Waite, a director of children’s social care at the Department for Education, told the committee in June 2026 that 472 children had gone missing in total and that 432 had since been located.
She told the committee:
“Guidance was issued to police from the Home Office, to be shared with local networks, to ensure that we continue to look for those children and that we can surface whether they have been found, and information can be updated to provide more reassurance.”
Not every child traced was found in a safe setting. Angela Eagle, writing to the committee when she was border security and asylum minister, set out what had happened to some of them.
Eagle said some of those found were:
“located in exploitative situations and may have been trafficked or victims of other forms of exploitation.”
Why the UK asylum hotels missing children cases stayed open
The committee acknowledged the recovery rate while pressing the government on the cases left unresolved after several years, and asked the Home Office to publish an update every three months on efforts to locate those still unaccounted for.
Its report said:
“We welcome the fact that the majority of missing children have now been found. However, we continue to be extremely concerned about the fact that some children who went missing from asylum hotels in previous years remain missing.”
Patricia Durr, chief executive of Every Child Protected Against Trafficking UK, backed the call for regular reporting and greater transparency, and warned against the matter slipping out of public view as the years passed. Durr said:
“The government cannot allow the disappearance [of children] to fade from public scrutiny. It is a significant child protection failure and we strongly support the committee’s call for regular public reporting and greater transparency about what is being done to find those who remain missing, understand why so many children disappeared, and ensure this can never happen again.”
Where the UK asylum hotels missing children review goes next
A United Nations-linked watchdog separately gave the UK government its lowest ranking for failing to uphold asylum seekers’ rights in line with UN recommendations.
The two assessments were made public within hours of each other on Thursday, 27 August 2026.
The Home Office had not committed to the three-month reporting cycle at the point the report was published, leaving the committee’s central recommendation outstanding.
Its answer would determine whether the search for the remaining children was tracked in public or handled internally by the department.
