Violations of human rights

of migrant children and

youth in Europe
Jan Blažek
UNINTER

Precongreso mundial por los derechos de la infancia y la adolescencia

 Current situation of migrants in the
world
❖ 257 million Migrants in the world – 3,5 % of global population
❖ Over 25 million are children under 15

❖ 21 million Refugees

❖ 39 million Internally displaces persons

❖ Over 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey – The biggest refugee community in the world,
❖ Half of them are Children

❖ Other key source countries –Afghanista, Iraq, South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Nigeria

❖ Around 83 % of refugees are hosted by developing countries

❖ Around 43 % of migrants are hosted by the global South

 European migration situation

❖ During the "Migration crisis" of 2015-2016 1,5 million of migrants entered to Europe
– almost 10 000 dead

❖ In 2017 entered around 170 000 – more than 3000 dead

❖ In 2018 so far around 80 000 - around 1600 dead so far

 European migration situation

❖ Since 2015-2016 rapid rise of Xenophobia and Restrictive policies

❖ Externalisation

❖ EU-Turkey Deal March (3/2016)

❖ leading to rapid dropping of migration to Europe
❖ 3 million Syrian trapped in Turkey with no hope, education, work opportunities etc.

❖ EU-Lybia deal (2/2017)

❖ EU participating on slavery, torture, rape, forced labour, killings etc.

❖ Systematic detention and deportation as a main instrument of migration management

 UNCHR Condemnation

❖ Europe has turned from the beacon of human rights to perpetrator of

human rights violations of the highest calibre

❖ UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein (2018):

❖ "In many European Union (EU) countries the trend towards racism,
xenophobia and incitement to hatred was now dominating the political
landscape"
❖ “I am deeply concerned about the current overriding focus of EU States on
preventing migrants from reaching Europe, and rushing to deport many
who do”
 Migrant children in Europe

❖ Since 2015 around 30 percent of asylum applicants in the EU were children.

❖ In 2017 around 50 000 children applied for asylum in Europe

❖ Up to 30 000 of these children in 2017 were unaccompanied or separated

❖ UNICEF-IOM investigated that around 75 per cent of refugee and migrant

children had experienced violence, harassment or aggression, abuse
 Migrant children vulnerability

❖ As the data shows children are way more vulnerable than persons
older than 25

❖ There are different levels of vulnerability within the children group

❖ Race – Kids from Sub-Saharan region more likely to be exploited
❖ Gender
❖ Disability
 Variety of problems in Europe
❖ Family reunification, Guardianship and foster care, Access to basic
public services such as education, mental health and psychosocial support, absence
of shelter

❖ According to HRW (case of France) there hundreds of unaccompanied children are

left homeless, sleeping rough and do not have access to basic social service
accessible to children
❖ Due to arbitrary and flawed age-assessment procedure – based on appearance or
interviews lasting around 5 minutes

❖ WITNESS: Imrane O., from Côte d’Ivoire, who gave his age as 15, told Human Rights
Watch that his examiner “said that I was answering her questions too well. Because I
could answer her questions, I couldn’t be a minor. How is that? I did eight years of
schooling, in French. Of course I could answer her questions.”
 Systematic detention of Children

❖ The biggest problem in human rights violation of children

❖ Detention not as a last resort, but as a primary instrument of managing

migration

❖ It is estimated that there are 40,000 children who are detained each
year
❖ Almost non-existent data about detention of children

❖ Huge negative consequences for the psychological, cognitive and

psychical well-being of the children
 Greece

❖ Greece is the best case study for describing the situation

of the migrant children detention

❖ Proportion of children remains significantly higher than

on other migration routes
❖ 37 per cent compared to 17 and 16 per cent in Italy and
Spain (respectively)

❖ Most children arriving in Greece come from Syria,

Afghanistan and Iraq, and are typically below 12 years old
 Greece

❖ Asylum seekers, including children needs to stay at the islands until their
claims are decided due to EU-Turkey deal from 2016

❖ Highest court struck down the policy in April 2018, but government ignored
the court decision.

❖ Long periods of stay

❖ HRW documented children waiting almost a year
 Greece
Limits of medical care
❖ Children with serious ilnesess have been stuck on the islands for months
without possibility go to the mainland
❖ Children assessed as highly vulnerable – and who should be allowed to
move to the mainland on that basis – are being scheduled for these
interviews as late as April 2019.

❖ Complicated bureaucratic process and absence of will to provide the care

❖ HRW documented that officials did not share the assessments with the
asylum authorities for months.
❖ The authorities refused to lift restrictions keeping children and their
families on the islands.
 Greece
Limits of medical care

❖ HRW: "In Moria refugee camp on Lesbos also need

unavailable medical treatment. A father from Afghanistan
said he had to beg medical workers to take his 2-year-old
daughter who had been “extremely sick for three days” to a
hospital. Her condition had been deteriorating for a week
but “the camp doctors just told me she should drink water,”
he said."
 Greece
Absence of psychological care

❖ Doctors Without Borders reported that conditions in Moria

camp on Lesbos had deteriorated even further, to the
extent that children were being retraumatized and an
increasing number were having “intense panic attacks,
suicidal ideations and suicide attempts.”
 Greece
Limits of Education

❖ 3,000 school-age asylum-seeking children, fewer than 400 are

in school

❖ Rates of school enrollment are far worse than Jordan,

Lebanon and Turkey where they are over 60 %
❖ Countries with significantly lower gross national incomes
per capita and vastly more refugee children
 Key children's rights protection against
detention

❖ Convention on the Rights of the Child

❖ Article 2/2 Nondiscrimination - duty to ensure that all children enjoy their rights,
regardless of their nationality/migration status or that of their parents.

❖ Article 3/1 Best interests of a child - primary consideration in all actions

concerning children

❖ Article 37 No unlawful deprivation of liberty of a child

 Key children's rights protection against
detention
❖ The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child

❖ Children should not be criminalized or subject to punitive measures because of their

migration status. The detention of a child because of their parent’s migration status
constitutes a child rights violation and always contravenes the principle of the best
interests of the child. In this light, States should expeditiously and completely cease the
detention of children on the basis of their immigration status (DGD 2012, Para 78)

❖ The principle of the best interests therefore requires States to take a clear and
comprehensive assessment of the child’s age and identity, including their nationality,
upbringing, ethnic, cultural and linguistic background, as well as any particular
vulnerabilities or protection need they may have. The child’s best interests must
supersede state aims, for example, of limiting irregular migration. (General comment
no.6, para. 86)
 Key children's rights protection against
detention

❖ Council of Europe action:

❖ Resolution 2020 claimed that unaccompanied children should never be detained

and that the detention of children on the basis of their or their parents'
immigration status is contrary to the best interests of the child and constitutes a
child rights violation.
 Key children's rights protection against
detention
❖ Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights

❖ "the child's extreme vulnerability is the decisive factor and takes precedence
over considerations relating to the status of illegal immigrant" (Art. 91 of the case
of Popov v. France and Art. 55 of the case of Mayeka and Mitunga v. Belgium)

❖ Best interests must be given priority over Europe’s migration agenda. This is not
only the right thing to do it is a legal imperative (Case of R. and H. v. the United
Kingdom; Tarakhel v. Switzerland; Elmi v. Malta)

❖ One of the limits of ECtHR is that it does not call for a ban of children's detention
 End of children's detention

❖ Majority of children's and human rights organisations are

calling for definitive end of practices of detention of children

❖ The Global Campaign to End Immigration Detention of Children

was launched during the 19th Session of the UN Human
Rights Council in 2012,

❖ Alternatives to detention that fulfil the best interests of the

child and allow children to remain with their family members
and/or guardians in non-custodial, community-based contexts
while their immigration status is being resolved.
 Other key steps to mitigate the suffering
of migrant children
❖ UNICEF, SOS Children's Villages etc.

❖ Create safe and legal channels

❖ Grant guardianship to unaccompanied children

❖ Easier family reunification

❖ Access to education and health care

❖ Migration and law enforcement actors should be able to meet the needs of migrant children

❖ Adress the root causes / Sustainable Development

 Critique of the rights-centred approach

❖ The previous suggestions are just part of the reformist stream of addressing
the oppression of the migrants / migrant children

❖ Human rights focused approach is fighting against dehumanization of the

migrant children / adults and trying to overcome Fortress Europe logics

❖ Yet it is still within the limits of Management of the migration / not

Emancipation
❖ Migrants still as the objects
❖ State-centred
 Critique of the rights-centred approach
❖ Human rights focused approach will never get beyond the limits of balancing state security and
rights of migrants

❖ Human rights centred approach does not address the structural inequality of the modern western
world order

❖ It is the legal code that is reproducing the "migrants"

❖ And it is sovereign authority (national, international) that should protect migrants but it is
creating them and hurting them

❖ Law and rights cannot be the long-term solution as they are part of the problem
 Need of a radical approach beyond the
discourse of rights
❖ To offer emancipation to migrants we need to move beyond the modernist dichotomy
Citizen/Migrant

❖ We need to move beyond the idea of integration migrants (and others) into working of modern
institutions like state, capitalism, race hierarchy etc.

❖ We need practices based on the activity of migrants themselves

❖ Active citizenship
❖ No Borders politics

❖ We need more ecologically, politically, economically sustainable and radically democratic world
order

❖ Not just reformed version of western world order but WORLD WHERE MANY WORLDS FIT