The US health department has reported receiving more than 4’500 complaints of sexual abuse from unaccompanied migrant children kept at border shelters.
Over 4’500 sexual abuse complaints at migrant children shelters on US border
27 Feb 2019 - 15:16
The US health department has reported receiving more than 4’500 complaints of sexual abuse from unaccompanied migrant children kept at border shelters.
The revelation was made on Tuesday by US Congressman Ted Deutch during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on President Donald Trump administration's policy of family separations at the border.
Deutch said the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a part of Health and Human Services (HHS), had received 4,556 complaints against sexual abuse and harassment of unaccompanied migrant children in government-funded shelters from October 2014 to July 2018.
The Department of Justice had also received an additional 1,303 complaints, including 178 allegations of sexual abuse by adult staff.
The cases included allegations of inappropriate touching, staff members allegedly watching minors while they bathed and showing indecent videos to minors.
“These documents detail an environment of systemic sexual assaults by staff on unaccompanied children,” Deutch said.
“Over the past three years, there have been 154 staff-on-unaccompanied minor, let me repeat that, staff-on-unaccompanied minor allegations of sexual assault. This works out on average to one sexual assault by HHS staff on unaccompanied minor per week," he added.
The Trump administration’s policy of “zero tolerance” in May last year resulted in thousands of children being separated from their parents at the southern border and placed into HHS custody.
The controversial policy, which called for the criminal prosecution of all adult migrants who were detained after illegally crossing the southern US border, created a massive outcry and the backlash forced Washington to walk it back just three months later.
The United Nations, immigration and child advocates and Democratic lawmakers have all condemned the practice of separating families at the border.
The bulk of the separations involved Central Americans, who make up the majority of families crossing the southwest border.
Following the Tuesday hearing, the House Oversight and Reform Committee voted to subpoena the Trump administration over documents related to the policy of separating children from families at the southern border.
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