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More unaccompanied children are coming to Europe
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Children on the move lack safe routes, emergency assistance
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Family reunions and parenting networks face delays
By Beatrice Tridimas
TRIESTE, Italy, – As quietly as they had come, on a cold winter evening, three teenagers ran through a shady station in the northeastern Italian city of Trieste, pursued by a member of a smuggling gang who was barely older than them. .
Less than 100 kilometers from the Italian border with Slovenia, Trieste’s central station was just a short stopover on the boys’ long journey from their homes in Egypt.
At the station, in the square overlooking the Plaza Della Libertà, officials from international and local NGOs brought pizza and warm coats to the boys, two of whom are 14 and one 15. There was nothing else they could do.
Throughout the night, volunteers teamed up with officials at the square to provide food, clothing and first aid to the migrants, many of whom are under the age of 18 and traveling without a parent or legal guardian.
In the first nine months of 2024, arrivals of unaccompanied children in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain, the main EU entry points, were 8% higher than in the same period in 2023, with arrivals slowing overall. Despite data compiled by the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF.
At the end of September, there were 22,489 unaccompanied and separated children in five countries.
And as more people arrive, human rights groups warn that Europe is not adequately equipped to help them.
An 18-year-old Afghan, who gave his name as Omid, which means hope, arrived in Trieste late on November 1 aboard a freight train carrying grain between Serbia and Italy.
With grain still in his pockets, he was playing cards at the station with a group of people he had traveled with, waiting for the first train from Trieste to Venice at 4:26 am.
He said he spent 13 days wandering around Bulgaria without food and was chased and beaten by police.
“They hit us with sticks, kicked and punched us. If you moved, the dogs would bite you,” said Omid, who fled Afghanistan and declined to give his full name for security reasons.
Omid said he covered most of his journey on foot with 23 other Afghans. He said they have no future in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
Between July and September, the International Rescue Committee helped an average of 11 newly arrived unaccompanied children every day in Trieste. More than half were boys from Afghanistan.
As of January 2022, 83% of the children the IRC has helped were Afghans.
When they arrive, the exhausted teens need practical help — new shoes, socks, first aid for their bloody and blistered feet, cold medicine, and ways to sleep, shower, and charge their phones. Place for.
Most people only stay a night or two before moving on.
With no place to stay, many people sleep on the streets under emergency blankets, have no access to toilets and risk having their phones taken away or becoming victims of traffickers looking to exploit them.
“They are invisible to everyone except us,” said Alessandro Pepes, manager of the IRC’s Trieste operations.
At 1 am, the railway station closed and Omid and his group sought shelter from the icy wind in a nearby bus garage, grateful for the shoes, coats and blankets given to them.
numbers are increasing
According to UNICEF, violence, conflict and human rights violations have contributed to a dramatic increase in the number of forcibly displaced children around the world since 2020.
In Europe, 46,500 unaccompanied or separated children are expected to apply for asylum in 2023, more than double the number in 2020.
According to EU data, the largest number of first-time applicants for international protection among unaccompanied minors were from Syria, followed by Afghanistan. In 2023, 13,570 unaccompanied Syrian children applied for international protection.
Many European countries blocked asylum applications from Syrians after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in December. Children and adults can still apply, but their applications will not be examined until the situation is clear.
The exact number of children traveling alone in Europe is unknown, as many do not register upon arrival and continue on the move.
Local authorities in Italy are only responsible for managing the arrival of children if the children choose to stay, Pepes said.
Unaccompanied children who register with the police are accommodated in official reception centres. But children who do not register miss out on access to state-run services and their rights.
The IRC is raising funds to open an emergency shelter in Trieste specifically for unaccompanied minors.
According to the IRC, often children are traveling to a country where they have friends or family, or they do not want to be separated from the groups they came with.
In the Plaza Della Libertà, volunteers and officials from the IRC, Save the Children and the UN refugee agency UNHCR provide children with information about their rights and the asylum process, or how to buy and validate train tickets for the next leg of their journey. Provide information about do. ,
Of the 6,501 unaccompanied minors the IRC has helped in Trieste since 2022, 84% said they planned to move on.
“They always have enough motivation to reach out to other countries, so it’s impossible to keep up with them, even though it would be better for some of them,” Pepys said.
no safe route
Terry Smith of the European Guardianship Network said children often face violence and danger or are exploited by traffickers during the journey to Europe, which sometimes takes years. said Terry Smith of the European Guardianship Network, an organization working to improve services for unaccompanied minors in the EU.
Itinerant children need a legal pathway, Smith said.
“We can’t do that because the system doesn’t exist.”
Children who apply for asylum in their first country can legally move to another Member State by requesting to transfer their application to a country where they can have family.
But strict legal considerations and inconsistent standards between countries make it a long, complex and inefficient process.
Figures from the European Council on Refugees and Exiles show that only 2% of relocation requests in 2022 were based on family reunification.
In Greece, where arrivals of unaccompanied children have doubled compared with last year, application deadlines are often missed because other EU states require time-intensive DNA tests to prove family ties, said Lora Pappas, director of Metadrasi, a Greek NGO that works with migrants and refugees.
Doubt on new agreement
A new European migration agreement will allow applications by unaccompanied children for family reunification to be submitted after the official deadline.
But in November, the IRC and 28 other humanitarian organizations signed a joint policy brief calling for stronger protection measures for children in the agreement and resources to support them.
The agreement on migration and asylum will come into force from 2026. Member states must submit plans to implement the rules by 12 December.
The agreement aims to strengthen solidarity among EU members, as irregular migration has become an increasingly fraught political issue and states have a trade responsibility for arrivals.
This includes measures to strengthen screening processes and prevent secondary movement between countries to help establish which countries are responsible for handling applications.
But rights groups said governments need to support the measures with funding and training to ensure children’s vulnerabilities are not overlooked during screening and processing at borders.
“This agreement is a missed opportunity when it comes to child protection,” said Laetitia Van der Venet, an expert at the Forum for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, a signatory to the policy briefing.
The agreement requires the appointment of a permanent guardian within 15 days of applying for asylum in an EU member state.
Eleonora Testi, ECRE’s legal expert, said, “Guardianship services are understaffed, underfunded and do not have enough people to be able to meet the needs of minors. Without changing this, it will be impossible to respect.”
‘What should I do?’
Ahmed, a 17-year-old from Afghanistan, said he has been waiting for more than six months to be appointed a guardian before moving forward with his asylum application.
While living in a reception center for unaccompanied minors in Trieste, he comes to a day center for local homeless people run by the church charity San Martino al Campo and used by the IRC to support migrants, so that he can find his Could spend time with old friends.
Ahmed’s 18th birthday is approaching and he fears he will have to leave the reception centre.
“I only have two and a half months, what should I do?” asked Ahmed, who preferred to be identified by a pseudonym. “Maybe they’ll kick me out and I’ll sleep on the street.”
Ahmed hoped that if he was granted asylum his father could join him from Afghanistan.
Carla Garlatti, Italy’s independent charity for children and teenagers, is calling on more than 20,000 parents to become volunteers.
He said administrative processes should be faster and parents should be trained to help integrate children.
“For minors arriving in Italy without accompanying adults, the voluntary guardian figure represents a fundamental resource in the welcome and integration process,” Garlatti said in an email.
The authority has received 4 million euros from the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund for two programs dedicated to promoting foster care for unaccompanied minors and assisting volunteer guardians in fulfilling their role.
‘More work needed’
Rights groups are also concerned that the new migration deal could increase the risk of children being detained at borders.
Unaccompanied minors flagged as security threats will be subject to a new border procedure, which will mean they will be held at borders during the application process, potentially in detention-like conditions and without access to appropriate support.
A spokesperson for the European Commission Department for Migration and Home Affairs said, “Detention should only be used as a last resort, for the shortest possible time, and never in prison accommodation or any other facility for law enforcement purposes.” Should not be done.”
The spokesperson said minors under the age of 12 or with special reception needs should be excluded from these procedures.
Anna Knutzen, child protection specialist at UNICEF, said, “We want to see more safeguards, ensuring that children are not held in closed facilities, and that they have access to protection systems and education while going through any type of border process.”
Knutzen said member states should be very specific in the definition of terms when making their own laws to avoid broad application of the rules.
Knutzen said more work needed to be done to improve conditions in reception centers and ensure children have access to legal pathways.
Meanwhile, without the support they need, children and teens face difficult choices.
Ahmed said he had nothing to do in Italy and wanted to move on. He said it would cost 3,000 euros to travel to Britain and he would have to risk his life to cross the Channel.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.
