UK’s Dept for International Development Funded Terror

Posted on June 14, 2016June 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

Multi-million pound foreign aid grant spent on encouraging terrorism

Telegraph: A multi-million pound foreign aid project aimed at promoting Palestinian state building and peace has instead encouraged terrorism and led to an increase in violence, The Telegraph can disclose.

The Department for International Development (DFID)’s £156.4 million grant providing financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) led to civil servants being “more likely” to commit acts of terrorism, an independent evaluation suggested.

An official report found that the five-year project encouraged public sector employees to engage in “active conflict” since their salaries were paid to their families even if they were convicted and imprisoned for criminal acts, including terrorism.

On completing jail sentences, civil servants were able to return to their jobs which had been “kept open when they return from detention”, and continue to draw a salary funded by the UK taxpayer.

It comes as MPs prepare for a parliamentary debate on foreign aid spending, held on Monday in the House of Commons.

Sir Eric Pickles MP said: “Sadly, the Palestinian Authority role has deteriorated to, at best, the cheerleader to acts of violence to, at worst, the operator of a revolving door policy for terrorists.

“British taxpayers will be shocked to learn that we are helping to fund an equal opportunity employment policy for convicted terrorists.”

Rt Hon Joan Ryan MP, Chair of Labour Friends of Israel called for an independent inquiry to “ensure that taxpayers’ money assists the process of building peace and coexistence rather than ending up in the pockets of convicted terrorists”.

The report, written by the Overseas Development Institute, found that DFID’s grant failed to “promote peace or peaceful attitudes” and appeared to lead to an increase in violence among Palestinians.

The DFID funds were enough to cover the salaries of 5,000 civil servants over five years, the report said, but the more foreign aid money was spent on public sector employment, more “conflict-related” deaths occurred.

“The study suggests that in the West Bank, an increase in the number of public sector employees is associated with an increase in Palestinian fatalities due to conflict,” the ODI report said.

“An increase in public sector employment by one per cent is associated with an increase in fatalities by 0.6% over this time period.”

The report cited the “opportunity cost” hypothesis which states that “conflict, and therefore fatalities, are more likely when the opportunity cost of engaging in conflict is lowered”.

It goes on: “For public sector employees, the opportunity cost of conflict is lowered as their employment will be kept open when they return from detention, and their family will continue to be paid their salary.”

Ms Ryan said the report “adds to the mounting concerns about the support which DFID is providing to the Palestinian Authority”, and that she has “no confidence” in DFID’s internal review into UK spending in the Palestinian territories.

“This is an issue which has been put to the department repeatedly over recent years and which is has consistently and repeatedly failed to act on,” she said.

Lord Polak CBE, a Tory peer, said: “We have been campaigning for many years to ask DFID to ensure that UK taxpayers’ hard-earned money was reaching the right places and not the wrong pockets.

“DFID and the FCO will now need to rewrite their parliamentary answers”.

A DFID spokesman said: “The ODI report clearly states that UK support on the ground helped prevent economic collapse and an escalation in violence. In turn this reduces the risks of further displaced people leaving the region.”

NATO Launches CyberSpace Mission

Posted on June 14, 2016June 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

NATO to Recognize Cyberspace as New Frontier in Defense

Nasdaq: BRUSSELS—Allied defense ministers formally recognized cyberspace as a domain of warfare on Tuesday, an acknowledgment that modern battles are waged not only in air, sea and land, but also on computer networks.

The move comes the same day as the Democratic National Committee announced its computers had been hacked by the Russian government. DNC officials said the hackers made off with its opposition research related to Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for President.

The effort is designed to bolster allies’ cyberdefenses, but also will begin a debate over whether NATO should eventually use cyberweapons that can shut down enemy missiles and air defenses or destroy adversaries’ computer networks.

“This is important to all possible conflicts we can foresee,” he said.

Mr. Stoltenberg declined to address the suspected cyberhack on the Democratic National Committee by the Russian government, and wouldn’t name any potential cyber adversaries, noting that NATO’s cyberdefenses weren’t aimed at any one country. U.S. and allied officials have previously said Russia remains the greatest cyberthreat to the alliance.

Developing capabilities to more quickly attribute responsibility for cyberintrusions and cyberattacks is a priority for the alliance, Mr. Stoltenberg said.

“One of the challenge when it comes to cyber is it is not easy to tell who is attacking you,” he said.

The decision by the ministers will allow the alliance to better coordinate its cyberspace efforts and defenses, Mr. Stoltenberg said.

“This is about developing our abilities and capabilities to protect NATO cyber networks but also to help and assist nations in defending their cyber networks,” he said.

For now, the alliance is focused on defending its own secure networks and helping allies build their cyberdefenses.

Tuesday’s announcement to recognize cyberspace as new sphere of conflict or battleground constitutes a bit of catch- up by the alliance. The U.S. military, for example, has expanded its cyber command, improved its training and developed weaponry and defenses to deploy in cyberspace.

The change comes as the number of cyberattacks against the alliance and member states has been increasing, a senior NATO official said.

By making cyber a warfare domain, NATO will open the door to stepped up military planning, dedicate more officers to cyber operations and better integrate electronic warfare into its military exercises.

Two years ago, at the previous summit in Wales, NATO leaders announced a cyberattack on one ally could trigger the alliance’s collective defense provisions.

Under NATO’s founding treaty, each ally primarily has responsibility for its own defense. But NATO officials acknowledge that the alliance is only as strong as its weakest link, which makes helping nations improve their cyber capabilities a priority.

As part of efforts to counter so-called hybrid warfare threats, the use of covert forces to stir unrest or make military gains, NATO has been pushing member countries to improve their cyberdefenses.

Russia has made cyber and electronic warfare a key part of its military operations. U.S. and allied officials said that Russia has demonstrated its willingness to use such techniques to interfere with the military capabilities of its opponents in Ukraine. Russia denies it is involved militarily in Ukraine.

U.S. officials have said countering Russia’s improving militarily capabilities—such as its advanced missiles and air defenses in the Kaliningrad exclave on the border of Poland and Lithuania—could require cyber capabilities.

“Russia has sophisticated cyber capabilities,” said Vaidotas Urbelis, the defense policy director for the Lithuania ministry of defense. “But, come on, NATO nations have invested a lot in cyber and we have the capacity to defend ourselves.”

On Monday, Douglas Lute, the U.S. ambassador to NATO said cyber operations could be a key part of the alliance’s defense against stepped up Russian advances in anti-access weaponry.

“A networked air defense system can be jammed. It can be disrupted by way of cyber techniques,” Mr. Lute said.

A discussion of additional NATO cyber capabilities—or offensive capabilities—is likely to wait until after the conclusion of the alliance summit in Warsaw next month.

The alliance lags well behind its most militarily advanced members, including the U.S. and Britain, in developing its cyber capabilities. In any potential conflict, the alliance would need to rely on the U.S. and its use of cyber weaponry.

“We welcome the decision to recognize cyber as a domain,” said British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon, adding the U.K. has committed some $2 billion for its own cyberdefenses and capabilities.

The U.S. Army has been increasing its cyberdefense training at its training centers in the U.S. and Europe. A pilot program begun last year has aimed embedding “cyber elements” with tactical units.

“We know a variety of countries have increasing cyber capabilities that can interfere with your communications, your global position and navigating systems, your targeting systems,” said a U.S. defense official.
*****

Last year saw was a small uptick in defense spending across Europe and Canada, Stoltenberg said. “Our estimates for 2016 show a further increase across NATO’s European allies and Canada,” said he added. “These are only estimates. But they are encouraging.”

The annual real change in NATO defense spending, he said, currently stands at around 1.5 percent, which represents an increase of more than $3 billion.

Plans to Boost Defense Spending

Some 20 NATO allies plan to spend more in real terms on defense this year, Stoltenberg said.

“So, this is real progress,” he said. “After many years of going in the wrong direction, we are starting to go into the right direction.”

With more money comes increased capabilities, Stoltenberg said, noting that NATO has agreed to place four battalions in the eastern nations of the alliance.

“Based on the advice of our military planners, we will agree to deploy by rotation four robust multinational battalions in the Baltic states and in Poland,” he said. “This will send a clear signal that NATO stands ready to defend any ally. More from the Department of Defense.

OMG, Guess who is Now Obama’s Newest Advisor?

Posted on June 14, 2016June 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

White House Appoints Latest Advisor Tied To US Muslim Brotherhood- Zaki Barzinji Is Grandson Of US Muslim Brotherhood Founder

GlobalmbWatch: US media has announced the appointment of Zaki Barzinji, age 27, as the new liaison to the Muslim American community under the White House Office of Public Engagement. According to a Huffington Post report:

May 26, 2016 With Islamophobia rampant in communities across the US, Muslim Americans now have a chief ally at the White House.

Zaki Barzinji, former Deputy Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va.), recently assumed the new role as liaison to the Muslim American community under the Office of Public Engagement, the White House director of specialty media told The Huffington Post this week. In his new post, Barzinji will plan outreach to Muslim Americans, as well as Sikhs, Buddhists, and Hindus, working to ensure that these communities are represented at the federal level.

‘A big part of this role is making sure the national conversation about these communities is not framed through a single lens, but covers the full range of issues that Muslims and other Americans face,’ Barzinji, 27, said in a statement to The Huffington Post.

Zaki Barzinji, 27, recently began as liaison to the Muslim American community under the White House Office of Public Engagement. The Virginia native and former president of Muslim Youth of North America has experience bringing underrepresented groups into the public arena. While working in the governor’s office, Barzinji served as a liaison to the Virginia Asian Advisory Board and prior to that directed outreach to Arab American and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities for McAuliffe’s 2013 campaign.”

Read the rest here.

It would appear that in reality, it is not “Muslim Americans” who now have a chief ally at the White House but rather the US Muslim Brotherhood. Among other things, Zaki Barzinji is the grandson of the late Jamal Barzinji, of one of the most important founders of the US Brotherhood. As we noted in October 2015 in our obituary for Jamal Barzinji, according to a history of the US Muslim Brotherhood (USMB), authored by the GMBDW editor:

Three individuals—Ahmad al-Haj Totonji, Dr. Jamal al-Din Barzinji, and Dr. Hisham Yahya al-Talib—played key roles in the founding and development of MSA [Muslim Student Association]. All were born in the Kurdish, northern part of Iraq, and may have met there or possibly later in Britain, where all three received their undergraduate education in engineering An FBI memo has identified Barzinji and al-Talib as members of the Muslim Brotherhood prior to establishing a residence in the US. The Washington Post adds that [Barzinji] fled Iraq in 1969 when the Ba’athist regime started executing fellow Islamists. After completion of their studies in Britain, the three came to the United States, ostensibly for graduate study but also to continue organizing Muslim youth activities

As the above report goes on to explain, Dr. Barzinji went on to play key roles in the founding of the Saudi World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), said by US government agencies and officials to have helped spread Islamic extremism and terrorism around the world, as well as most of the important organizations comprising the US Muslim Brotherhood including the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and perhaps most famously the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). In January 2014, the GMBDW reported that elements of the US Muslim Brotherhood had organized a dinner in honor of Dr. Barzinji and the IIIT. In May of this year, we reported that the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) awarded the organization’s “Muslim Democrat of the Year” award posthumously to the late Jamal Barzinji as well as to his colleague, the late Taha Jabir Al-Alwani, another founding figure of the US Muslim Brotherhood and both co-founders of CSID. CSID itself was founded in 1998 in what appears to have been a cooperative effort among the US Muslim Brotherhood, the US State Department and Georgetown University academic Dr. John Esposito with the aim of promoting “Islamic Democracy.”

Zaki Barzinji himself has participated actively with US Muslim Brotherhood organizations including as noted above the Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA) associated with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and, as the GMBDW reported in 2008, appearing as a MYNA representative alongside important leaders of the US Muslim Brotherhood. Zaki Barzinji joins a long list of individuals tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood who have been invited by the Obama Administration to serve as important advisors including:

Mazen Asbahi- On August 1 2008, the GMBDW (then known as the GMBDR) ran a post identifying Chicago lawyer Mazen Asbahi as an adviser to the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) and NAIT as part of the US Muslim Brotherhood and which was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist trial, as was NAIT board member Jamal Said. The post also listed Mr. Asbahi’s connection to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). The GMBDW ran a second post on the same day that identified Asbahi’s ties to two further US Muslim Brotherhood organizations- the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding and an Illinois LLC called SA Consulting. At this time the GMBDR was private and the post received very little attention until August 6th when the Wall Street Journal published an article revealing that Mr. Asbahi had resigned from the Obama campaign after the Journal had queried him about his USMB ties. The Journal credited the GMBDR for breaking the story.

Dahlia Mogahed- On April 12 2009, the GMBDW reported that one of the two Muslim members appointed to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships was Dahlia Mogahed, a protege of John Espositio, perhaps the best known academic supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and with strong ties to Saudi Arabia. Although the report on the appointment was not exclusive to the GMBDW, we were the only publication to note that Ms. Mogahed is the daughter of Elsayed Mogahed, an Egyptian immigrant who is a former engineering scientist at the University of Wisconsin and director of the Islamic Center of Madison (ICM). The website of the ICM links mainly to US Muslim Brotherhood organizations and Souheil Ghannouchi, the President of the Muslim American Society (MAS), was ICM Imam and President for several years. The MAS is part of the US Muslim Brotherhood and closest to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

Huma Abedin– On February 7 2010, the GMBDW reported that that then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had addressed students at the Dar El-Hekma women’s college in Saudi Arabia, known to have been co-founded and patronized by an individual designated as a terrorist by the US as well as by important Saudi bankers and members of the Bin Laden family. As part of that story, we noted that the Vice Dean of institutional advancement at Dar El-Hekma is Saleha M. Abedin who was one of the founders of the College, as well being the mother of Huma Abedin, a Deputy Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton. We also reported that Saleha Abedin, along with her late husband Syed Z. Abedin, were founders of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, a London organization that is known to have been close to the Saudi Muslim World League. We subsequently reported that Saleha Abedin was serving as a board member of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief (IICDR), an umbrella group for 86 Islamic organizations, many of which are associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas fundraising, or support for Al Qaeda. We also delved into the ties of Huma Abedin’s brother Hasan Abedin who was an officer of the Oxford Center of Islamic Studies, chaired by Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef, a Saudi with his own extensive ties to Islamist organizations. A variety of other actors later claimed credit for unearthing the information about Human Abedin’s parents that was first reported by the GMBDW.

Rashad Hussain- On February 14 2010, the GMBDW reported on the US Muslim Brotherhood connections of Rashad Hussain, a White House attorney who was President Obama’s newly appointed envoy to the OIC. Those connections including ties to the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), the Muslim Student Association (MSA), and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS). The post also revealed that an annual MSA conference, Mr. Hussein appeared along side the daughter of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian and labeled Al-Arian’s prosecution “politically motivated persecution.” The post further noted that the sentences pertaining to Mr. Hussein statement had been removed from the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) report on the MSA conference but were still available at the Internet Archive. The story was subsequently “appropriated” by another media outlet who only belatedly and partially credited the GMBDW as the original source of the story.

Mohamed Elibiary– On October 30 2010, the GMBDW reported that the Department of Homeland Security had sworn in three new members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council one of whom was Mohamed Elibiary, who we exclusively identified as the President and CEO of the Freedom and Justice Foundation, an organization with ties to the US Muslim Brotherhood and the US Hamas infrastructure. Since that time, Mr. Elibiary has been widely discussed in a variety of venues and described as a “noted Islamist” though he was virtually unknown until the GMBDW highlighted his background.

Despite the above, the GMBDW is on record as rejecting the suggestion, widely popular in certain circles, that the presence in the Obama Administration of so many individuals tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood is proof that the government has been “infiltrated” by the Brotherhood. As we have argued in the past:

More recently, an additional challenge has emerged, namely the use of GMBDW research to spin unsubstantiated and fanciful stories about the same networks we have so carefully tried to document. The most egregious example is the claim, since gone viral, that the Muslim Brotherhood has “infiltrated” the Obama administration. Stories based on this alleged infiltration typically feature rogues galleries of “Muslim Brotherhood operatives” said to be whispering in the ear of the Obama administration and aimed at causing the downfall of the United States. In most cases, the stories include high-profile individuals first identified by the GMBDW as tied to the Global Muslim Brotherhood using criteria we have long since publicly explained.

We refer readers to that post where we debunk the notion of such “infiltration” and provide an alternative explanation for the presence of these individuals in the US government but it is important to repeat our caution at the end that:

….there remains the pertinent issue of what influence, malign or otherwise, these individuals may have had on Obama Administration policy toward the Middle East or in other relevant policy arenas

That said, the newly announced appointment of Zaki Barzinji is particularly interesting to us as we believe it is evidence of a long-standing cooperation between the US Government and the Muslim Brotherhood. This topic however is far beyond the scope of this post and will hopefully be the subject of a future report.

WikiLeaks to Provide Hillary Secret Emails

Posted on June 14, 2016June 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

Nevermind, State Dept. – WikiLeaks is about to publish a batch of Hillary’s secret illegal emails

BizPac: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has not been in the news much recently, but the online provocateur is roaring back in the forefront this week with an announcement that will bedevil the Hillary Clinton campaign anew. Assange said he is set to release another large batch of emails Hillary sent from her illegal, secret server while she was Obama’s Secretary of State.

The announcement comes as the presumptive nominee for the Democrat Party presidential candidate essentially clinched the delegates needed to become the nominee even as she continues to fend off suspicions over whether or not the FBI will recommend she be indicted for breaking the nation’s security laws with her private, hackable email accounts.

According to The Guardian, Assange made his comments on the British political TV show “Peston on Sunday” saying, “We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton … We have emails pending publication, that is correct.”

Assange’s WikiLeaks already has a searchable data base of over 30,000 Clinton emails encompassing over 50,000 pages of documents sent from June 30, 2010, to August of 2014. The trove of information can be seen at WikiLeaks’ Hillary Clinton Email Archive.

When asked if he thought the U.S. Department of Justice would indict Hillary for breaking U.S. national security laws, Assange said that Obama would never allow it. Speaking of U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Assange said, “he’s not going to indict Hillary Clinton, that’s not possible. It’s not going to happen. But the FBI can push for concessions from a Clinton government.”

Assange, no fan of Hillary, also insisted she is a warmonger saying, “she has a long history of being a liberal war hawk.”

The WikiLeaks chief also slammed Internet giant Google for being “intensely aligned” with Clinton’s campaign.

Indeed, Assange’s comments come on the heels of charges that Google cooks its algorithms in order to hide the many decades of scandals connected to the Clintons when Google users search her name.

Recently Danny Sullivan of the website Search Engine Land realized that there is no automatic search parameter recommendation in the Google Search bar for “Crooked Hillary.” In contrast,”Lying Ted” comes up in the search bar as soon as users start typing the word “lying.”

Search Engine Land even discovered that searches for “Lying Ted” and “Crooked Hilary,” both terms used on the campaign trail by GOP front-runner Donald Trump, have been searched a similar number of times, yet the Hillary search still doesn’t afford users an automatic recommendation.

This led many to charge that Google is trying to make sure Hillary’s lies and criminal charges are harder for users to find.

This also led Robert Epstein, a psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, to say Google could help throw the presidential election to Hillary.

“We estimate, based on win margins in national elections around the world that Google could determine the outcome of upwards of 25 percent of all national elections,” Epstein said in a new study of Google’s search algorithm as reported in Wired magazine.

Europe has an Unaccompanied Children Crisis Too

Posted on June 14, 2016June 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

New World Dis-Order

Unaccompanied child refugees: ‘These children aren’t seen as children’

A network of 30 European NGOs supporting missing and exploited children have come together to tackle the rising problem of missing refugee children

Guardian: Human smugglers increasingly combine smuggling with exploitation and their victims are often children,” says Federica Toscano. “At chaotic border situations, it happens that smugglers deliberately separate refugee children from their parents to exploit them.’’

“We also hear that families at the border between Greece and Macedonia have been forced to ‘pay’ smugglers with one of their children,” continues Toscano. “Smugglers have come to realise they can make much more profit by taking advantage of vulnerable people. And the most vulnerable people are children.”

Toscano is well-placed to know. She works for Missing Children Europe, a network of thirty European NGOs that are active in the field of missing and sexually exploited children. Since its foundation in 2001, MCE has focussed on different groups of missing children (pdf). Half of the cases of children that disappear in Europe are runaways: those who run away from home or institutions after a history of violence or abuse. More than a third are abducted by parents.

Related reading: Invisible refugees: ‘You are the only organisation that has ever visited us’

But the most recent category is unaccompanied child refugees. “This group only makes up 2% of cases, which is a low percentage,” says Delphine Moralis, the secretary general of MCE, “but that doesn’t say anything about the magnitude of the problem. These children are seldom reported as missing. That’s why we find it so important to focus on this problem too.’’

Earlier this year Europol stated that at least 10,000 unaccompanied child refugees have gone missing in Europe. A recent EU report warned that these children have become targets for criminal gangs, who exploit them in the sex industry or force them to beg, steal or smuggle drugs.

But MCE believe the true number to be far higher than 10,000. Toscano says that “in Italy alone 5,000 refugee children have gone missing. And Germany reported that in 2015 almost 6,000 of these children have disappeared.’’

The organisation has been aware of the problem for some time. “As far back as 2005 a Belgian study showed that one fourth of unaccompanied children seeking asylum went missing within the first 48 hours upon arrival. So it’s no news to us.”

But for a whole range of reasons, many of these disappearances go unreported. “First of all, there’s no sense of urgency,” explains Toscano. “When a child refugee goes missing, the general assumption is that he or she has a plan, and that the child is resilient. The police and social services don’t feel the same sense of urgency as when the child is from their own country. They are not aware of the risks these children run, that they might fall victim to exploitation. So nothing is really done.’’

How is it possible that all this is going on in Europe and nobody seems to know where these children are?

The lack of formal procedures when these children disappear is another problem. “Much depends on the goodwill of the single professional involved,” says Toscano. “There is no common system to collect information about missing children in Europe. There are good practices, but they’re very local. So the traffickers just go to another area.’’

MCE was founded fifteen years ago in 2001, when it became clear that European cooperation on this issue was seriously lacking. “I was working for a Belgian NGO at the time when two Belgian girls went missing,” says Moralis. “On the third day of their disappearance a judge called us and said: ‘We have no idea where these children are, they could be anywhere in Europe, we really need your help now.’ There was no other way to tackle the problem but by contacting one by one all the 309 European organisations working in this field. That’s when we realised it was necessary to create a network of contact points for missing children.”

The organisation facilitates training of professionals to respond better to the disappearance of child refugees. It also exerts pressure on European institutions to provide clear rules and legislation to protect these children. This year, MCE has published a handbook (pdf) on good practises to help prevent and respond to unaccompanied children going missing.

“We try to be as practical as possible,” says Toscano. “You can do so much to prevent a child from disappearing. Just a simple example: when a child arrives in a shelter and is given food, he may think he has to pay for it. When he has no money, he will try to escape as soon as possible. Workers should take time to explain everything to the child … Sometimes these children don’t even realise it when they are exploited. Their traffickers tell them all kinds of lies to make them extra vulnerable. They say: watch out for authorities, they will lock you up.’’

They also closely monitor development throughout Europe. Toscano has been collecting information on missing children in Europe through the EU co-funded SUMMIT project (pdf). This included a study into interagency cooperation around unaccompanied migrant children done through surveys and interviews with hotlines for missing children, professionals at refugee reception centres, guardians and law enforcement in the UK, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Belgium and Ireland.

As a result they are hearing from the frontlines. “We know that there are networks of child traffickers that operate in different countries,” says Toscano. “For example, when a refugee child has been exploited in Eritrea and claims asylum in the Netherlands, there will be another criminal gang waiting to exploit him there. Traffickers have excellent lines of communication. When a child has a history of trafficking, the risk that he will be trafficked again is very high.”

According to Moralis, the closing of borders means that lots of refugees are stuck in bad conditions: “This makes them more vulnerable and creates more opportunities for criminals. How is it possible that all this is going on in Europe and nobody seems to know where these children are?”

“Our main aim is to raise awareness that these children are children,” says Toscano. “It’s very simple. You’d think that everyone would be aware of this, but it is certainly not the case. Not for authorities, not for members of the civil society, nor for the general public. These children usually aren’t seen as children, but as people who just come here and use resources that we want to use for something else.’’