120,000 children living in UK face destitution, says charity The Children's Society has called on more support for asylum-seeking children facing destitution in the UK, many of whom are living under the radar. Photograph: Joe Penney/Reuters The government needs to do more to support an estimated 120,000 undocumented migrant children, who are living under the radar within the UK, the Children's Society told MPs at a select committee hearing on Wednesday. Enver Solomon, policy director with the charity, said "child protection issues are not being prioritised over immigration control," and staff working both with these undocumented children and with asylum-seeking children, saw many situations where "immigration issues trump child protection issues." Because these children were not being supported by the state, there were very high levels of destitution among them, he said. "We have women who are pregnant who are unable to support themselves, or who have very young children, experiencing great hardship - parents not being able to buy enough food or nappies for their children, formula milk... This is very serious hardship," he told the education select committee hearing on destitution amongst migrant and asylum-seeking children. Around half of the estimated 120,000 undocumented children were born in this country to parents who do not have the legal right to reside here, he said, either because they have entered the country illegally, evading border controls, or have overstayed their visa. "They have no recourse to public funds; they are in no-man's land," he said. His colleague, Andrew Jolly, who works with the Children's Society West Midlands destitution project, told the committee: "We have worked with mothers who have been forced into prostitution and transactional sexual relations because they need to provide food for their children." Damian Green, minister for immigration, said "destitution is very explicitly not used as a tool." However, he added it was important for the UK to send a message to countries such as Afghanistan, from which children were being sent unaccompanied to try to live in the UK. He said that the streets in London were not "paved with gold" and that sending a child with traffickers, "halfway across the world, perhaps to die on the way, is not a way to increase prosperity." Sarah Teather, minister for children and families, said the law stated that these migrant children should be treated the same way as other children, but added: "If there is evidence of poor practice, then that is an issue we need to take up." "I am not comfortable with the idea of forcing people into destitution to encourage them to leave," she told the committee. The hearing was triggered by a Children's Society report (pdf) on the subject, published earlier this year, which highlighted the difficulties faced by children in asylum-seeking families, whose parents did not have the right to work here, and could access only limited support from the state, and also by migrant children, sent unaccompanied to live in the UK. In 2008, a legislation change determined children who were subject to immigration control should be granted the same rights as any other child in the UK, in accordance with the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. But the Children's Society report concluded that "children's rights continue to be breached for the purposes of immigration control." "Young people and families become destitute because immigration policies purposefully restrict access to benefits, services, and the labour market, which prevents families from being able to pull themselves out of poverty," the report states. In many cases children and young people are deliberately being made destitute by the government's policy of excluding these young asylum-seekers and migrants from support. For those young people and families whose claims have been refused but who are unable to return home, this policy is pushing them into alarming levels of deprivation. The charity expressed particular concern about young people who turn 18, and who subsequently disappear from care, because they are frightened about being forcibly removed from the UK.