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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
George Monbiot

Horrific, unregulated, and very profitable. The companies making cash from England’s children in care

Illustration of two men's hands, one holding a sack printed with a pound sign and the other reaching out to grab it over a child in a hoodie seated in a hole in the ground

Bring your suitcase, your bin liner, your dumpy bag. They’re handing out money faster than you can stuff it in a sack. All you need do is join the market in what may now be England’s most lucrative commodity. A commodity with arms and legs, hearts and brains, thoughts and feelings. Children.

Two years ago I stumbled into this issue after discovering that children in care who were being helped by a local charity I’m involved with were suddenly being whisked away, terminating the amazing progress they had been making, breaking their relationships, their sense of home, stability and security. When I began exploring why this was happening, I could scarcely believe what I was seeing: a highly lucrative trade in highly vulnerable young people. Children in “care” were being exchanged between private equity companies for £100,000 apiece. That figure is now wrong. Today they are worth far more.

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